


The Start

by Messypeaches



Series: Cocaine Driven Maniacs [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Naruto
Genre: COMPLETED (Sort of), Crack Fic, Crack Pairings, Crossover, M/M, Multi, Other, Part one of three, crack in general, what do you want?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 00:43:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11498223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messypeaches/pseuds/Messypeaches
Summary: Something's happening in the DC universe. Mostly another universe is dribbling onto them. It's a bit of a messy affair but there's always a bright side, right?You only need passing understanding of either DC, Naruto, or eventually Marvel to enjoy this.Completed!





	1. Some light worldbuilding

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative names for this-
> 
> Convergence  
> How Timmy got his Groove Back  
> Dammit JB

There had been over seven hundred of them. Long, lancing rays of light in the atmosphere that had curled and generally scared the hell outta everyone. Without actually doing much.

But five billion mildly freaked out people meant that the super-heroes of the world had to get a look at each and every one of them.

And generally, they were finding things.

Burnt remains of scrolls with instructions that had sent some of the mystic masters into a tizzy. It was hard to tell if they were happy or SAD that most of them were too fucked up to read. They found weapons that drained your life force to form beams and arches of energy that'd cut through stone (it wasn't as bad as they'd expected, really. YES a gang had gotten a hold of it and tried to do some high level criminal nonsense BUT the thing had killed six of them before Superman could even get there.)

A shower of artifacts. And a lot of trees and rocks from a dead world.

And then there were the bodies. Often charred. Sometimes still alive.

One of them had been clinging stubbornly enough to life in spite of the third and fourth degree burns. He was deep underground now, in Utah. Still clutching a sword that tried to bite everyone else, being pumped full of a steady stream of morphine.

They didn't know if the sword was keeping him alive or not. And there was a lot of talk in the League about whether it'd be better if he never woke up. 

The two corpses fused together in Iceland. The skeleton with the tattoo on his forehead burnt into place. They'd looked at it and said that it had been there from shortly after birth.

There were bodies with more broken-then-healed bones than the whole bat-clan combined. Not that the bat clan was telling anyone else this. But Superman knew. 

And then there was nothing. 

For a year. 

Then the sky lit up again, and a second rain of flotsam came down.

And this time. There were survivors.

Like the wide eyed man who'd babbled in a new language, wearing a white short robe of sorts.

Who'd been scared, and when he'd panicked he'd beaten the tar out of both Green Arrows, set Black Canary's hair on fire, and bloodied Green Lantern's nose before they got him subdued.

It took several very LONG hours of video and generally pointing him at windows to show him a big city before he was talkative again. Seven filled blackboards later, he'd gotten a bit of a message across.

His world had died due to something that was hard to explain with stick figures but looked bad and used a lot of ominous looking scribbles.

They explained, back, with stick figures, that they were superheroes. It took a while. Green Lantern helped. 

He smiled in a strange manner, and drew his old classroom. Shaking his head. 

"You need train," he said, in broken English, but still. English. "Then. I teach."

**********

There were others too. Catching them, well, calming them down, formed a certain pattern.

Generally, you had to send someone who could take a few hits, then surrender, then pull out the damn slideshow.

If you sent someone too strong, they behaved like cornered beasts right up until they bit down on the poison capsules half of them seemed to have. Superman had felt REALLY bad about that one.

If there were two and one was hurt, things went easier because as long as you made it really clear they wouldn't be separated....

The Teacher, the first one, refused to go help. His English was frighteningly good now, and he explained, simply that there were different clans and him showing up had a seventy percent chance of resulting in a death match.

Once they were acclimated, though, the man was invaluable. The shell shocked fighters (and only the fighters ever made it through) would be too stunned over things like skyscrapers to care too much about old world grudges. 

****

By the third rain, they had fifty-seven survivors. They kept to themselves, mostly. Went up to Montana, took over fifty acres and an old granite quarry. Sure, woe-befall anyone who tried to fuck with them, anyone who crossed their tidily marked little border...

But really they were more like low key lethal Amish than anything else. 

Extremely friendly to the superhero community Amish.

Tim Drake was there to train.

****

The concept of a secret identity had been, difficult to explain. They understood undercover, yes, and even long term undercover where you fabricate a persona. 

But their ideas on how to change your appearance went a hell of a lot deeper than spandex. They talked about breathing and illusions.

And some of the superheroes listened.

The general rumor was that the JLA was paying for the Lost Villages (they'd started to mark things with a question mark out of some wry old habit) cable in exchange for them staying there and training members.

There was another, truer rumor that fewer people had heard about that said it was really just one member of the JLA giving them funding, and he was paying them NOT to teach anyone else.

And in spite of the odd tensions of the different clans? They were the sort who respected a contract. 

"Robin," Someone called, and Tim felt himself flinch. It was a good thing they never went anywhere, because they'd accidentally out half the heroes in a heartbeat. They asked your name, and you could tell them anything, and if they saw you again, no matter what you were wearing, they'd shout that out cheerfully.

They said it might be a cultural thing but Tim personally thought that it was their way of saying 'you are not hiding good enough, and until you do, we're calling you out on it.'.

The teacher, Umino, had grinned at that question and refused to answer it. But the chuckled been enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THEY GET LONGER AFTER THIS SO BUCKLE ON IN

The third rain was almost unnoticed. Almost. People who looked for that sort of thing had deep spastic panic attacks when the arctic lights went a little haywire, but...

Really only the League and the Lost Villagers knew for certain what had happened.

Tim had been half way up a wall, sweat pouring from his skin trying not to slip or slide or how the HELL did they make it look so easy? when the news had come in. 

"They saying maybe twenty more," said a voice above him.

Tim did not spare a glance up to look at the speaker. He tried really hard not to hear the man at all. It felt like his grip was coming from a sub dermal layer, and his skin was suffering. He'd have bruised fingertips, again, but he was going to get that fucking BELL. 

"Survivors, you know? But there's big things happening to the south." South, being generally the rest of the world, as far as the Lost were concerned. Tim swore he'd heard them refer to New York as south east at least once.  
Then his grip failed and he just swore.

Ten damn feet! That was it! It was a fifteen foot wall, with a bell sitting on top. All he had to do was scale the sheer face. Using. Willpower..

Okay, so before the rain he wouldn't have been worried about his inability to do it, but... They'd done tests upon tests and the warriors were mostly human! As in, a select few individuals (including Mr. Crispy in Utah) had quirks to their DNA, but most, like the teacher Umino, like the young man on top of the wall grinning at him, came back as pure human. 

"And?" Tim asked, NOT rubbing his ass as he stood. He always felt naked here. The fact that he was wearing what felt like soft pj's didn't help. He tried to tell himself it was like any other judo or tai-kwon-do or karate geta but frankly it was too soft.

The fact that everyone else wore the same thing but in black didn't make him feel any better. The fact that once he got the wall thing down with bare hands and feet he'd have to put on shoes and learn it all over again didn't make him feel better. 

He'd been here a month and was still five feet short of the top. Frustration was ~~showing~~ brewing. There were ten year olds here that could kick his ass. That HAD kicked his ass.

Batman had probably already figured it out. Dammit. He'd get back to Gotham and the man would be sprinting up and down buildings.

"And this time you heroes are all so busy, we go and get some of them. You want to come?"

"I thought that you people avoided that. First time meetings and old rivalries and so forth."

"Cold people are usually willing to negotiate sooner," the man said, smiling wide. Slightly sharp teeth, slightly off eyes.  
But the DNA was still human. The animal look to him was from repetition of shape changing, they'd had this talk.

"But you still want me to come?"

Kiba leered a moment, but it was a short moment. "When don't I want that? Yes. You come. Strange little student that can kick like a mule and do little hoppy flips with strange toys? Perfect way to confuse them." 

Tim felt like he was being mocked again. It wasn't that they were outright rude or mean, but there was always that sort of condescending 'oh, look at him try' feeling to the way they spoke to him. 

Maybe people always sounded like that when they were walking down walls.

Kiba landed lightly and Tim hated him, just a little, for the fact he'd done it in what looked like black leather combat boots. 

He was dressed to GO. Heavy ski pants, big open jacket. There was fishnet at his neck that indicated what sort of undershirt was in there, but the entire village gobbled up acres of the stuff. And leather.

They dressed kinda kinky when they left the village, even if they stuck to the pj's inside it.

Flash seemed to think a lot of orgies were happening, but even he had a hard time catching them off guard. They were never surprised to see him, anyway. Said he was too colorful to miss. 

Kiba'd explained it to Robin in terms that Tim had finally translated into 'aura' and 'chi'. Apparently the meta-human-heroes were the aura equivalent of a rock concert in a world of AM radios. 

Kiba was getting into the audiophile hobby deep. Tim recognized those little white earbuds and wondered if that was what he was being paid for the tutoring.

Well, they were a hell of a resource. Another few years and they could be used as spies, once they stopped giggling at inappropriate times during movies and automatically hoping up unto the wall to avoid foot traffic in subways. Come to think of it, getting them off the top of the subway'd be a good thing too. 

Tim shook his head to get back on track. "And where do you think they'd landed?"

"In your arctic circle. You and I, we go to the territory that's the farthest north. Alaska,"

"It's a state, not a territory,"

Kiba shrugged to show just how little he cared. "You and I, we go there. Plane leaves tonight, you me and Akumaru can be on it, have some fun hiking around looking for scrolls, bodies and maybe more lost villagers." He smiled broadly.

Tim knew they'd never admit it out loud, but there wasn't a single member of this refugee village that didn't hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd find a loved one fallen out of the sky. 

And there wasn't a single JLA member than didn't hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd be as lucky this time as last time, and none of the more dangerous ones that Umino had mentioned would come through. The Kages with the chips on their shoulders, for starters. The JLA LIKED the village being leaderless and politely antisocial. 

The last thing they needed was for those fifty-seven survivors to turn into fifty-seven warriors bent on.. Whatever they were bent on back home, following one very strong scary person. Slightly less bad but still dangerous was the idea that the village might split and break into civil war. Yeah it was fifty acres now, but it could turn into a hundred smoldering acres of rubble pretty quickly. 

No one had forgotten Umino trashing that shopping center.

Tim nodded. "Tonight, huh?"

"Gear's been sent for you. Should be delivered today," Kiba said, idly toying with the dog tag on the long leather cord. He stuck it in his mouth and hummed, gestured that Tim should follow.

Orally fixated bastard, Tim mentally grumbled to himself. It was cool outside. As in COLD. He was actually glad when Kiba's massive dog stepped between him and the wind. The thing was the size of a cyldesdale. But it was warm.

And amazingly friendly, but that was just a sign of really good training.

_I'm not scary,_ the dog's eyes said, as it trotted along, tail wagging, tongue lolling. _I'm just big. I'm sweet. I want to lick your face. Don't pay any attention to my teeth. I'm just smiling. Rub my belly?_  
Tim reached out without thinking and scratched behind it's, sorry, her ears. He had to reach UP to do it.

He'd seen the thing eat a frozen butchered sheep. He had nothing but respect for it. Besides for all he knew the fucker could climb walls too...

Kiba made a laughing noise and pulled off the jacket, tossed it around Tim's shoulders. "Too cold for you?"

Tim glared. And pulled the jacket closer. His sweat had been freezing on his skin, he just knew it.

Kiba laughed again, jumped lightly, up, onto Akumaru's back. Digging his hands into the warm coat. Akumaru backed once, happily.

The animals. Tim didn't think he'd even get over some of the animals that these people brought with them. The giant dogs, the trained insects, the snakes.

The air strip was long, and narrow. Nothing big came in or out. It looked like Kiba's gotten plane and Helicopter mixed-up again because there was a big one sitting there. Long distance copter, the sort you'd use for search and rescue. 

But, more importantly, it was next to the cafeteria. No one cooked in their homes, it seemed. They cooked here, and brought food home, or ate it here. It was a strange system. Maybe it forced them to stay social.

The helicopter pilot's were eating there, with that look that seemed to imply that they were being paid to do a job and were either paid too much or too little to give a fuck about the rest. Tim knew that look.

 

He took a seat in the corner, away from them. Gave the jacket back (with it's slightly musky dog smell) and rubbed his hands, looking at the bruises forming on his fingertips. The balls of his feet were probably just as bad, too.

Kiba leaned over, looking at them, laughing. "We call those baby-bruises," he said, catching Tim's hand at the wrist.

Tim had to resit the urge to try to break Kiba's nose. The important word was TRY. Kiba could take his ARM off, or he could come close and a fight with Kiba meant a fight with everyone else in the village and that meant being a small greasy splotch on the soil unless you were one HELL of a fighter. Or had one HELL of a plan in place before you started the fight in the first place. 

Kiba poked at the bruises, a moment. "We used to have a healer so great, she was legend," he said, soberly. "Is not good for you that she hasn't shown up yet. She might have fixed your hands on a whim or a gamble. All our medics now would tell you to visualize less frantically."

"What?"

"Frantically. You picture the energy’s' like an extension of your bones so it ruins the soft between bone and wall," Kiba rubbed his thumbs into Tim's palm. "Because you think that it takes bone to hold you up. It just takes balance and knowing all of yourself." He beamed again. "And food. You are hungry."

Tim nodded. And while kiba went to get the food, he tried, carefully, to pick up his fork with his pinky.

Alll of himself. Not just the bone. He HAD been picturing it as a glowing skeleton network. The major veins, really. Maybe he needed to mentally include the smaller veins. Branching out into lace? hooking in like a thousand bits of velcro?

Tim sighed. This was all, backup anyway. For if his zip-lines failed.

But it was strange to just find out that you could LEARN to be meta. That's what it was. VERY meta.

 

*******

Kiba came back with pizza. Tim didn't know who had explained pizza to the curious warriors, but their version of it had caught on.

The crust was some sort of potato based bread, not the tough chewy stuff Tim was used too. It was thin, and light. No sauce, just thin sliced tomatoes layered under cheese layered under some sort of thin sliced salty meat, under mushrooms.  
Mushrooms had gotten a bit confused too. Enoki, wood ear, porchini. Every sort of edible fungi that wasn't a button mushroom piled on top, piled under cheese and thin sliced tomato. 

Generally any recipe that called for a lot of chopping got made well. The slice in front of Tim was more of a example of how sharp the knives were in there than anything else. 

He eyed the cheese. There was more than one type. Really, it was a pile of calories and carbs. With some meat in there.   
Presumably for structural stability.

Not that it mattered. Tim had lost ten pounds in a DAY here because he hadn't believed that their form of mediation could POSSIBLE take that much energy. And climbing was WORSE. He was eating like the flash and the only trick was not to just slam his face into the plate.

He wondered if the tomatoes were organic. Probably. Didn't want them to think that anyone was trying to poison them. 

The milk he passed on. TIm was a city boy, and goat milk was just toooo strange. The tea here was good, anyway.

"So, where in Alaska?" 

"By Barrow." 

That was north of the circle. And it was march.

He'd need much warmer clothes. MUCH.

Gortec, nylon, artificial fibers....

They didn't have that.

They HAD, in the storage, Leather, and oiled leathers, and goose down and thick furs. The sort of things the native wore, the sort of thing that mountain men would have worn.

And they hardly ever froze to death.

Tim kept telling himself that while trying to guess if the collar was rabbit or squirrel.

"Bear," Kiba corrected him. "But only to keep out snow. Inside, is mostly beaver and lots of goose and duck."  
Hardly EVER froze to death. EVER. 

"They've invented things that you can use instead of this, you know,"

"Soft wool things that are warm even when you are wet?" Kiba grinned. "These are better. We played with your plastics. Useful. But cheap. And these are better. Besides, here, these are your plastics," He held up the goggles, and the radios. "And our boots have rubber soles."

"Still, there are, lighter things and,"

"You just want your bright underwear back," Kiba grinned, shoving another slice onto Tim's place. "Eat and don't worry about style."

Tim ate with one hand and stretched his fingers out with the other.

"All your toys are already on the plane," Kiba added, cheerfully. "We'll bring the pizza with us." 

Tim nodded, and just kept eating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this almost fiveish years ago and got an itch to finish and post it. SO HERE YOU GO. I write a bit better now, and do not care to fine tooth comb this for typos.


	3. Chapter 3

 

The helicopter had no seats in it. There were straps, yeah, and Tim got into a harness and attached his, but Kiba just hooked his jacket to the wall and sprawled on Akumaru. Like the dog was a sleeper sofa. 

Tim didn't glare. Oh, sure he'd had gear up first, and was sweltering in heavy wool (the furs he'd put on when they got there) with canvas straps keeping him in if the doors swung open, but Kiba could just lay there. Tim frowned and put his hand flat tot he metal. Lace and little veins, not spikes and bones...

"It's not your fault, you know!" Kiba had to yell over the sounds of two million individual parts flying in close formation. 

"What?"

"That you can't get up that wall! I was receiving training when I was an infant! My da'd rub my stomach and move my legs and stimulate the pathways!" Kiba grinned. "I'm not supposed to tell you that, but we're pretty impressed you can do a damn thing! If you were any older you'd be screwed!" 

"Where did your accent go?!" Tim asked, filing the information to think about later.

"We talk how we talk to sound like we can't talk so well, yes? You see?" Kiba laughed, and this time Tim could, hear the faint different. The affected accent had even been in the laugh. "It's not a new trick, fake an accent to seem ignorant."

"And you're telling me why?"

"Because I like you, Robin!" Kiba's grin never faded. He angled a glance towards the front of the copter, and his hands tangled a moment.

Abruptly the sound was gone. Tim felt a charge, in his hand where he'd been trying to grip but that was it. 

One of their tricks.

They had categories for the tricks, but the line between affecting what people perceived and changing was actual world was strangely fuzzy. They could make illusions, yes, but they could also change their shapes, and they called that an illusion as well.

And now he wasn't so certain that it was just a flaw in translation. "No, really," and his voice was suddenly clear in the still air Kiba'd somehow made. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I like you."

Tim's eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened to rebutt that.

"And I'm hoping to bed you." Kiba added, cheerfully. "In case you misunderstand what sort of 'like' I meant. Even when you know this language, you can't really know it, you know?"

Tim's mouth stayed open. Dropped, really.

"And the shortest distance between two points is a straight out pick up line," Kiba gestured with both hands, indicating the imaginary points. "I mean, I'm only guessing that you're even gay. But you had Hanna and her twins right there in your face and you barely even looked. And her twins are... What's that song? Something about peaches and trees? She had lovely peaches. More straight men would notice them more than you." Hands out, palms up. "And Akumaru said that you didn't even smell interested."

A week... He'd been outted. In a week. Tim blinked once and otherwise didn't move. 

"Do you just not like sex at all, maybe?" Kiba pulled a toothpick out of a pocket, stuck it in his mouth. Tim could smell the cinnamon oil from across the copter. "I mean, once training started you've just smelled. Kinda sweaty and tired."  

Akumaru's tail started to wag, and the big dog whined softly. 

"Hey, relax, don't get all jumpy," Kiba held out a hand. "C'mon. Just yes or know if I have a chance?"

So this was what it really felt like to be paralyzed. Tim tried to anaylze the feeling. It was better than thinking of an answer. 

Kiba's eyes rolled. They looked very bright and white in his tanned face. The same way his teeth were bright.. "Ah, well, you must me thinking, 'what is in this for me? I know I'm a catch, but why sleep with the dog boy?' right?"

"That wasn't actually," Tim started. 

"When there are so many other hot available gay-as-rainbow young men out there. Several who were back in the village," Kiba grinned. "And you should choose me, because I'm a better dancer than they are."

<i>I could manage flirting,</i> Tim tried to reassure himself. <i>I can. I'm not so socially stunted that being flirted at stuns me.</i> But this wasn't flirting! This was a... A... Sales pitch. "And that's all?" TIm asked, wondering why Kiba was choosing that as a strong point and not, say, his physique.

"You know some of the reason's already," Kiba said, preening in place. "See the credit i give you for being not blind?"

 Tim managed to close his mouth. Oh god, it was at least an eight hour flight, right? Probably more. Probably 14. Did they have fuel for this? Dear god. 

"But the fabulous body comes with my profession, it's like a contortionist telling you they're bendy. Not a real unknown fact. Oh! I can maintain most basic jutsu's through orgasm. Not everyone can do that, you know. That's tricky." 

"Is it?"

Kiba nodded. "When you come, it's like a bomb in your energy system. Well, all your systems, You heart races, your brain fires off signals for no reason at all other than maybe for mental confetti, muscles all do silly things. Messy stuff, sex. And you tend to screw up any jutsu's you were maintaining."

Akumaru yipped in agreement. Well, more of a deep _rrruup_ but when a nearly one ton dog uses it's vocal chords, 'yippy' isn't the right word. 

"See? Akumaru knows," Kiba smiled and flopped sideways, arm around the beasts neck, hands digging deep into the fur to scratch.

"Is her coat thick enough for where we're going?" Tim asked, praying for a conversation change.

Kiba nodded. "She'll be fine, really. If we sleep out there, we'll end up against her belly for warmth."

Tim had not lived so far behind the mask that he didn't recognize a thinly veiled innuendo when he heard it. "And we'd have to huddle for warmth, of course," he said, tone bone dry.

"Almost undoubtably, but don't get your hopes up. It's going to be forty below. Our dicks would snap off. Not sexy at all."  Kiba wriggled his brows. "But is that a yes? It's a long flight, you know. They won't hear a thing in the front."

The worse thing about blushing is that once you realize you've started you can't really stop anymore than you can turn the rain around and send it back up into the clouds. 

It was going to be a miserably long flight.

 

*****

It was cold. It was beyond cold. And after the melting fires of.. What ever had just happened, the man was having a hard time deciding what was preferable. Death by flame, or death by ice?

Both had a sort of ironic twist to them, he supposed.

Fire because, well, live by the flame, die by the flame? Maybe that wasn't Ironic, Maybe that was apropo...

Ice because well, live by the flame, freeze to death?

Yes. This was the more Ironic death. He curled in on himself, in the small pocket he'd kicked out of a snow bank. 

He'd never been a fan of irony. That hadn't been his thing, really. He'd had other abstract idea's he found far more amusing. Like puns.

He was going to miss puns.

And his toes. He didn't need to look to know he was probably going to loose a few of those. And possibly his ear lobes. And his fingers.

And his life.

_If I loose my lower extremities first, i won't have a leg to stand on!_

He smiled. It was a very bad pun, yes. But those were the best kind.


	4. Chapter 4

 

The flight was nearly twenty hours long. They stopped for a bit, at some point. Tim didn't know, it was fuzzy.

Rather like the dog he was sleeping on.

He opened and eye and was relieved to find that while Kiba's arm was touching him, it was only touching his head where it was wrapped around the dogs neck.

Kiba was still sleeping. While Tim was curled against the dog’s back, against a huge shoulder, Kiba was between her paws, head under her jaw. They took their animal's very seriously, he knew that, but it was still an odd image. He knew how big Kiba was, the young man was his height (taller, really) but you lost a little of that sense of scale when he was next to his dog. It made him look a lot smaller. 

"We're here. We'll refuel one last time and start making sweeps," The pilot said. 

Tim nodded. And shivered. No wonder he was pressed to the dog, it was freezing even in his wooled layers.

He stood up, started to don the hide-based outerwear. "You better be right about this stuff being warmer," he muttered. 

Kiba didn't hear it. The sound was back on. But he was stirring and Tim paid no attention to any fish netting that may or may not have become visible. 

"Fuckin' finally," Kiba grumbled, stretching. and rolling and twisting a moment in a sort of system's check that was a little more catlike than dog like for a moment. 

"If you'd asked for a jet,"

"Meh. Too fast. Was being hopeful you'd say yes faster."

"I didn't say yes at all!!"

" _ Yet," _  Kiba said, grinning up at Tim.

Tim resisted the urge to kick him. Only, he told himself, because Akumaru might take his leg off at the knee."Your people out there might be freezing to death!"

"You know why only our fighters and killers and soldier's are surviving these rains? It's because anyone not strong enough to survive is just ash in the air.  My people are hardy people. A day in the snow won't kill anyone who can fall from the sky without wings."  Kiba grinned. "And anyone who can do that? Needs to 'chill' a few days in case they are not dog people." 

Tim was not impressed and trying very hard to get that idea across in his glare, even while he was putting on the thick goggles.

Kiba pulled the jacket one, fiddled with his ear a moment and pulled up the hood. Didn't bother to ZIP it, no, but the hood was up. The side of the copter slide open and the air did it's best to rip the warmth righ tout of their bones. 

Kiba laughed and the sounds made clouds of ice in front of his face. "Yes yes, It's cold!" And the odd accent was back, again. "Cold cold, now we go and find a man to talk to about a sled, yes." His smile was wide, and bright.

There was a crackle in Tim's ear as the radio came on. Good thing, too, yelling in this air meant letting more of it into your lungs. He had an image of pink meaty Popsicles in his chest that wasn't comforting. "You didn't have one in your village?"

"Not a good one with bone runners!" Kiba's voice replied, amused. "It's okay, we already contacted this man about it, he's ready for us. Should be over here. Other reason there was no rush or need for a jet, see? Man needed time to make Akumaru a good harness. And you have to trust the work of a tribe that chooses to live up here. I mean, if they didn't do that sort of thing properly they'd be very dead by now."

"Teflon is just too good for you, isn't it?"

"Bone is better," Kiba's voice had a leer to it that made Tim pull his collar up.

Kiba laughed again. 

*****

 

The funny thing about freezing to death, the man mused, was that once you stopped shaking you started to feel. Warm.

A slow creeping warmth.

And he couldn't see his breath in the air anymore.

He curled into a small ball, head down. It'd be awful to loose his nose. He'd already lost two fingers and a his toes were looking like lost prospects.

 

*****

After being dropped off as the winds picked up, given a GPS tracker the size of a cooler, and what Tim thought might just be more dried fish than he EVER needed to see. EVER. 

Akumaru was RUNNING. They'd put the halter on, given her a good twenty feet of lead, and then they were OFF. TIm felt like baggage, clinging to the back of the sled while Kiba ran along his dog, barking out encouragement in one of their native tongues. 

They refused to teach it to anyone, but TIm was pretty sure he now knew the words for 'good girl', 'thata girl', 'heel', 'mush' and 'Go and an make a tinkle'.

That wasn't making him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, amazingly enough. Actually, not so amazing. It was cold, and it as getting dark fast, and Tim doubted anything short of miraculously teleporting to the sunny beaches of Waikiki would let him feel his FACE again. 

Not, he thought, grudgingly, that he'd feel any more at home on a beach than he did right now.

And Kiba'd probably LIKE it. It's be just like here but with less clothes.

Tim focused on shifting his weight to keep the sled upright. It wasn't too tricky, it had been packed up properly, but it did take constant attention if not outright thought. Like walking on a gentle slope, maybe. Or knitting. 

His baby-bruises (dammit!) hurt when they hit divots but those happened rarely. They snow they were on was the sort of perfect fresh powder that'd cost good money in Aspen.

Aspen. Where it was probably a balmy forty degrees. 

"If we don't find them soon, when it's dark do you intend to keep running around in the dark?" Tim asked.He only had to yell a little to be heard through the radios.

"Not enough moonlight," Kiba said, barely sounding out of breath. "Could walk, maybe. Slowly.Try to sniff anyone out but I'm not that good at night-vision."

Not that good at it. Because seeing in the dark without special gear was totally... a... Tim felt a head ache start. "Who is?"

"Ahaha, now see that's the sort of information that costs."

"Are we not paying you enough?"

"Your Bruce pays us plenty. To NOT teach things like that. But for a kiss? I might tell you who you should request to train with," Kiba's voice went from slightly out of breath to panting. "If yo u let me pick the kisses' location, I'll help you get them to agree to it."

Tim went rigid and his locked knees and spine very nearly resulted in the sled and their supplies getting spread across a half mile. "That is all you think about, isn't it?" He managed, after recovering both his balance and enough composure to be annoyed.

"One kiss would not kill you. I swear that I don't have fleas. Today."

"Did you have them yesterday?"

"I do lie down with dogs," Kiba said. He slowed, hopped up, and was suddenly sitting on the supplies, in a crouch, almost nose to nose with Tim. "You should try it some time."

"You just want me to lie down with you."

"Actually, lay with me. Tiny difference."

Tim scowled. Then attempted to think of a snarky come back. Came up with, "How tiny?"

"Three inches."

"That's it?" Tim bludgeoned on, trying to sound derisive.

"Four to seven isn't a bad spread," Kiba said, laughing. "I could show you."

"It'd freeze off," Tim said, confidant in his inability to blush while his cheeks were chapping. 

Kiba smiled wide, but even his lips were blue-tinted and Tim was pleased to see he'd zipped the jacket up. "We'll hole in when we get to better snow, then."

 

******

It was a funny thing, but he didn't want to die in the DARK.

So he chose not too. He still had chakra. He pushed it thought sluggish blood until it ran hot again. Muscles trembled until the ice broke.

He would wait until sunrise and let himself die again.

That would be good. 

Maybe there was even a pun in it. Somewhere.

*******

Snow was an excellent insulator, Tim told himself, chewing on a chunk of dried salmon and watching Akumaru dig in the dim moonlight. It was sensible to curl up under the snow with a giant dog and Kiba as opposed to trying to undress and get into a sleeping bag (which they hadn't brought).

That didn't mean the salmon wasn't sitting funny in his stomach. He wasn't used to dried fish, that was all. 

The wind was picking up though, and Tim didn't really want to get any colder, so when Kiba gestured, Tim walked over. Eyed the hole in the snow.

Sled dogs did this, right? Buried themselves? Tim seemed to recall reading that in a Jack London novel.

But he hopped down, and Kiba pushed him so he was against Akumaru's belly. In the warmest place, Kiba wrapped around him on the other side with yet another bear hide under them.

"Why did you really bring me?"

"I told you. To bed you. And the fact that a non-shinobi third party is useful in these situations didn't hurt either," Kiba said, wriggling in an unmistakable cuddle.

"Too cold, remembered?"

"It is never too cold to cuddle," Kiba said, wriggling just his hips. "Sometimes it is too hot, but it's never too cold." 

Tim tensed. "You're too blunt to be honest."

Kiba sighed. "That's true. I am. Honestly? Letting you see some of what we're up too means you can report it back to Bruce, and he can feel like he's one up on us. It's a mental arms race really." His arms tightened. "I asked to go with you because Akumaru needs to get better at cold. That's what I told them." 

"You realize he probably IS one up on you," Tim grumbled, trying to elbow Kiba in the ribs. It was amazing how the man could both press closer and dodge.

"But we're one up on him, too! That's the fun part!" Kiba laughed, and in the small snow cave the laugh sounded deeper. "That's how we roll!"

Tim planted his face into thick belly fur and did NOT groan.


	5. Chapter 5

Tim knew that when he'd gone to sleep, he'd been facing the DOG and KIBA had been at his back. 

He certainly hadn't fallen asleep eyeball to lips with the man. 

They were, at least, slightly chapped. And Kiba had morning breath.

And this close Tim's eye could barely focus on anything, especially not how plump those lips were, or Kiba's lashes.

... No wonder he'd been outted. Someone had crammed gay up his ass while-

Tim winced at that mental analogy and shut his eyes. "I know you're awake, you bastard."

"Did you know I'd already been out, found a bit of old scroll, taken a leak and come back just to snuggle you?" Kiba said, cheerfully, and those lips were pressed to Tim's forehead a moment. "Cmon sleepy go drain your lizard before Akumaru crawls out and causes a cave in." 

Tim tried to hit him, and failed. Then he was busy scrambling out while the massive dog stood up and started to wriggle her haunches in preparation for...

The pounce, up and out of the snow! Tim would have appreciated it more if he hadn't ended up face down in the fresh fine powder that had filtered down in the night. 

Kiba was snapping something that had the decency to sound like 'bad dog!' then Tim was being lifted from the shoulders of his jacket by a very contrite dog. 

Kiba tried to help brush him off but the glare he got as thanks made him lift his hands. "Fine, fine. I'll harness her up."

Tim kept glaring on principle a good chunk of time past when they'd gotten back underway. By now they were miles out over the Beaufort sea, emotionless, mildly lumpy snowy desolate wasteland.

Occasionally the snow would thin and they were skittering over ice that Tim knew went down for at least twenty feet.

That's what he told himself, anyway. It made him feel better.

Even Gotham probably wouldn't kill you for just standing still and out of the way. 

Ah, Gotham. Filled with crazies, treachous ledges, and pollution but at least it was WARM.  If he ever thought a bad thing about her again, he'd just remember this place.

Kiba was still running with his dog, but he had a hand on the harness now. And occasionally they'd slow to a trot, Akumaru's head hanging down, swinging side to side as she wuffed and ruffed and sniffed. 

Finally an hour before noon she stopped completely. Kiba unhooked her and she started to sniff and circle and sniff. 

"She have something?" TIm asked, legs feeling like jello.

"She might," Kiba said, walking a spiral that ran against Akumaru's. 

Tim watched a moment, felt useless, turned, took three steps, and fell down a hole.

When Tim told the story later, he changed that last part.

Truth be told, he didn't fall FAR. It was more of a misstep than a tumble (and how quickly he began to rewrite it  in his head).

"You okay?" Kiba was yelling.

Tim was busy staring at the frozen body . Getting up off his knees and starting to push the snow back, pulling the glove off to feel for a pulse. Nothing. Just a curled body, gender uncertain, face hidden, black hair frozen into snow and ice.

No, wait, maybe a pulse, he couldn't tell, but....

"Get out of the way, he might still be alive," Kiba said.

Tim nodded, started to move to give Kiba room to do.. Some weird energy something.

And Realized Kiba had a knife in his hand when he said that, and a dark look in his eyes.

Tim knew that look. He'd seen in a few other faces. And He reacted to it the best way he knew how.

 

*****

Akumaru had been about to get involved but the little human that her pack leader was courting had just hit the pack leader in the head rather hard and now she was a little, confused. Obviously she should defend the pack leader. But he'd been pretty clear about being nice to the little human after she'd picked him up like a pup.  She watched a moment as the two rolled around and decided that since her pack leader was pulling his punches, it was not, in fact, a power struggle for anything more important than who got to be on top.

Pack leader did this all the time. She wandered back to the sled to steal herself some dried fish.

 

*****

"What was that for!?" Kiba yelled, trying to think of a way to pin Robin without hurting him.

"You were going to kill it!" Snow was getting everywhere.

"You don't know that!" Finding little gaps in their clothes.

"I KNOW THAT LOOK!" Melting against their skin.

"He's probably dead anyway!" Going down the back of their necks as their hoods fell back.

"You know him, don't you?" Blinding them when the goggles got knocked away.

"He's a murderer!" Kiba got a knee into Tim's chest, got him back.

And Kiba would forever after be more respectful of how FAST a bat could really move. Because between him and the Ice man was Robin.

"If you kill him, you-"

Kiba snorted. "Are no better? I'm a shitload better, Robin. I could kill YOU and still be better than him! There used to be one hundred and fifty people in his family before he went fucking, berserker one day and killed them all!"

Kiba's voice didn't echo. There was nothing to echo against.

" 如果您认识我家您会了解," (1)

Tim didn't dare take his eyes of Kiba to look, but that had been the Iceman talking.

Kiba's face was telling him a lot, anyway. He'd gone from pissed ff to almost scared looking. Mouth a thin white line.

" 您二破坏我的自杀，您是否体会那？ 它是非常粗鲁的您."(2)

"Tim, I need you to stop arguing with me, and run," Kiba said, voice low.

" 我是瞎不聋的."

"Why, what's he saying?" Tim thought he might maybe be supposed to understand a few words. The man was speaking what all the shinobi seemed to speak when they first crashed down. 

There was a crunching noise behind Robin, the snapping of ice and...

A sudden miserable wail. " 折断的我的头发! 愁楚! 愁楚! 噢没有! 我的头发!"(4)

Kiba's face went from taunt and resigned to borderline bewildered, then angry. " 什么性交？ 那是否是某一类陷井! ？ 您是缺掉手指您笨蛋"(5)

"Kiba, who IS he?" Tim asked, finally turning to look.

Every time the man moved, even a little, there was a crunch, crunch as the frozen cloth of the long black cloak snapped and tore. His face was bone white, but his hands were red, finger's mottled blue and grey and in the case of his left pinky and the tips of a few others, scattered on the ground.

Iceman took a step that made Kiba growl, an honest to go growl in his throat, and Tim could see a blood footprint.

The man was barefoot, on an ice pack, in march, in the arctic circle. And he still had a PULSE.

And grey eyed. Not the uncanny grey some of the lost villagers had, this was the tinted cloudy grey of cataracts and possibly frost.

"I already told you. He's a murderer," Kiba said, spinning a knife on one finger in a nervous sort of gesture. Maybe more tense than nervous. 

"I meant a name," Tim said. "He's going to freeze to death, go get one of the bear hides."

"He's not going to freeze to death unless he wants too, and NO. Look, he's suicidal and we're just gonna back away and let him..." Kiba said, changing tactics. 

"No, we aren't," Tim snapped. "Go get ME a bear hide, then," he added, starting on the buttons of his jacket.

"Robin!" Kiba looked close to flailing now, composure chipping away. "What are you,"

But what Tim was doing was pretty straightforward. He was pulling off his jacket and handing it over to the ice man. Arms out in front, jacket dangling.

The grey eyes didn't shift but the man's whole head turned to track Tim's movement. Back and forth, a little, hand reaching out. 

The  man examined the jacket almost delicately before shrugging his arms out of the black and red clock, sliding the new garment on. His head tilted, and Tim found himself staring at those eyes. Could they focus at all? He could see motion maybe, blurred and,

"Wait, don't look in his-" Kiba started, and Time heard him but it was too late.

 

*****

Tim woke up on the sled. There was someone sitting behind him, and he was warm.

These were both good things to know.

Kiba was up THERE running with Akumaru and they seemed to be going VERY fast. That was also good to know. How was the sled staying upright? Oh. The person behind him was shifting his weight, left and right, as the sled moved. 

Tim tried to turn his head and got. Pain. He hissed.

"Sorry," said the person behind him. "That sometimes happens. Just close your eyes and breathe." 

"How long was I out?"

"And hour, or so."

"That's it?" TIm groaned. "What happ- what did you do?"

"Ruined the rest of my vision, most likely. But you made a nice little negotiating piece until Kiba calmed down. Breaking his arm helped too."

 Tim's eyes opened. He couldn't see both of Kiba's arms, just one. What he'd thought had been the other, the right arm, was just an empty sleeve.

"It's fine, we set it already. Your name's Robin, right?"

Tim gave up and nodded. 

"I'm going to put your goggles back on you so you don't go as blind as me, and we can have a nice talk back here."

The wind wasn't whistling the way it felt like it should be whistling. Tim could feel it, yes but it was as silent as the helicopter had been. "He can't hear us can he?"

"Yes, actually he can. He's still very mad at me, of course but..."

"Are you related?" It would explain why Kiba was mad, if this person had killed HIS family but that hadn't been how Kiba had worded it and...

The man laughed. "That mutt's not family," he said, tone derisive.

"Better a mutt than inbred!" Kiba shouted back over his shoulder.

"Alas, he has a point. My clan had a long tradition of marrying cousins."

Tim had a thought and glared at the back of Kiba's head. "So you killed your family, and Kiba's letting you HOLD me?"

"Oh, that's easy to explain. He's not actually upset about that." 

"He's  _ not  _ upset you killed over a hundred people.." Tim repeated. "Kiba!"

"It's a LONG story!" Kiba yelled. "Let's discusses it after. When we're warm. Preferably after sex." 

"I'm never fucking you, EVER!" Tim snapped. "If you didn't want to kill him for being a homicidal maniac, then why did you wanna kill him at all?"

"He's just pissed off I let one live," the man said, amused. "Uchiha Itachi, by the way. It's nice to meet you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Author's note- Itachi's speaking in Chinese, as translated by babel fish. For the sake of my sanity I didn't want to try to invent future-talk japanese/chinese hybrid language.
> 
> (1)- If you knew my family you'd understand.  
> (2)- You two are ruining my suicide, do you realize that? It is very rude of you.  
> (3)- I am blind, not deaf.  
> (4)- Oh no my hair just snapped off! Woe Woe Woe!  
> (5) (kiba)-What the fuck? Is that some sort of trap!? You are missing fingers you asshole!  
> (6) (kiba) FUCK FUCK FUCK


	6. Chapter 6

"I don't know how he knocked me out, though," Tim said, feeling stupid for not having gotten it.

"Oh, Christ it's probably some weird mental thing, we'll check your brain when you get back," Nightwing's voice crackled out of the speaker. "And it was only an hour?"

"Yes."

"And now he's speaking english?" Dick Grayson was one of four superhero's who'd managed to get the villagers to switch between names. Mostly because they thought his real name was tremendously hilarious. But that was okay, Dick agreed with them.

"...  _ Perfectly. _  They just speak it. Weird to fuck with us," Tim said, frustrated. Glad it was at least WARM here, but still. 

There was quiet a moment. "You okay?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"No."

"I mean, really are you- no? Seriously? It usually takes more than mild pestering to get you to cop to a problem. What's up?"

"... Kiba wants to sleep with me."

"..."

"... You just won a bet, didn't you?"

"...maybe."

"... What were the odds?"

"Well, I didn't make much, but there were a few smaller pools and if we can get some more details then I might make more," Dick sounded cheerful.

_ Why do I confide in you again? _  Tim considered asking, but he already knew the answer.  _ Who else you gonna talk too? Batman? _  And then Grayson-in-his-head laughed.  _ If you ask Batman what to do about the boy's liking you , I wanna be there!  _ "Ass," Tim said, thought most of the venom was for the imaginary conversation in his head. 

"Come on, if you don't tell me more I can't help you!"

"Tha'ts pretty much all of it. He's declared his intent to bed me."

"... Is that his term or,"

"His."

"Ah... Well, I don't know. Make sure he buys you dinner first or something." Another crackling pause. "Alright, so it took him an hour to learn english?'

Tim exhaled, happily. Back on track. "Yeah, and he talked for an hour, and spent the rest of the time listening to Kiba's Ipod. I don't know what's on that yet."

"Mostly books, if you go by volume but a lot of what it classifies at punk," Itachi said, appearing directly in front of Tim. 

Tim didn't jump. It took everything he HAD, and he'd had a LOT...

But Itachi didn't appear the way Batman did. When you realized he was there when he was damn well ready for you to notice him. But he'd BEEN there before you noticed, was the thing. You'd feel stupid for not noticing, but a tiny part of you would CLING to the fact that with enough training you MIGHT next time. MAYBE.

Probably not. But MAYBE.

Itachi's appearance was more like.... A hole in your field of vision closing. You had the unpleasant feeling that you hadn't seen him because he didn't WANT you to see him and had directed your vision elsewhere. Or worse, he really HADN"T been there a second ago and was both that fast and able to step through air particles. The Flash could do it, but the Flash would shove a body sized wall of air into your face. So would superman, come to think of it.

"Are you the new guy?" Grayson was asking. Of course, on a phone, the utterly <strike>creepy, unnerving, inhumane</strike> startlingly maneuver didn't translate. "Welcome to earth!"

"Third rock from the sun, according to someone named Diffe," Itachi said, smiling brightly and directly at the plastic of the receiver. "And you are?" His eyes were open but glazed, unfocused, and blind as a cave fish.

"Nightwing!"

"Oh,  _ Dick _ . Kiba told me about you. In length. I know someone who would like you, are you seeing anyone right now?" 

"Nope!"

TIm stared. But that was Dick Grayson, through and through. He wouldn't do anything but quip and chirp and make friendly as hell small talk now that they had an audience. And he certainly wouldn't do Tim any good as far as Kiba-advice went.

Itachi took the phone and held it a foot in front of himself ot talk at it. His hands were swaddled in bandages and he was leaning on a crutch.

Tim frowned and walked away. Crippled. And he was still as quiet as Batman.

"If he ever falls out of the sky I'll tell him about you!" Itachi was promising.

Tim was going to go have a hot bath, that was what he was going to do.

*******

****Meanwhile in Utah*******

Sterling would be the last to tell you her grasp on reality was tenuous at best. 

That just proved the frailty of her ability to understand situations involving people. DNA, things one slides under microscopes, oh, she knew those, could tell you all about those, and about adrenaline, and about skin oh, skin. Skin was bloody marvelous, it was. Waterproof, sensory, self healing!

And you could peel it off dead bodies and wrap it around the badly burned living! And it would GRAFT right on!

Sometimes.

Sorta.

The point being was that Sterling loved the details. Her god was in them, after all, the god of testable results and anomalies broken down and pie charts and pi and...

But the big picture would get lost in that dizzying kaleidoscope of her world view. She didn't just mis the forest because of the tree's, she got lost in the pine needles.

So when the cadaver skin that had partially bonded to senior crispy puffed up a little, then got taunt, she'd been enthralled. And started to study little patches of it, looking at the cells so very close that she never looked at the big picture.

To give her credit, if she'd been able to stay in there with Senior Crispy (he'd been found on the fifth of may, very few people knew that) for more than ten minutes at a time, she MIGHT have worked it out.

But frankly, just being in the same general area of the body made people feel. Tired. Inclined to go elsewhere. Not ILL... Just, drowsy. Tired. Focusing got hard. They said it was the smell. Of the creams on the skin, of the still lingering burned flesh even though it's been over three years now... It was the way the flame scarred sword looked, dull, like lead but shook like leaves in a wind if you touched it.

So while she noticed that the skin was tightening, and ran off to her microscopes and her computers and her math, she didn't see the big picture.

The skin was getting tighter, because the body inside was getting bigger.

******

 "No he won't be your type, at  first. But he's really persistent. You'll come around eventually. It's like coming to terms with a disease, really," Itachi was informing the phone.

Kiba didn't want to know. 

Well, more like, he didn't care. He was tracking a Robin, after all.

It wasn't like you needed two arms for sexing. And one of the doctor types here had given him some sort of shot for the pain which meant that he'd been able to erase a few of the seals so right now he actually felt great. A little foggy but the doctors had seemed so very concerned by the fact he'd run back in with a fracture. 

Morphine, they'd called it. Not bad stuff. More relaxing than pain suppression, certainly.  

He had refused their weird plaster casts though. He liked what he had now, the bone and leather splint Itachi'd helped with. It looked very nearly cool, except for the part where it kept his wrist and elbow immobile.

"Rooobin," he called out, following the young man down the stairs. To the basement where their rooms were for the night. 

Robin stiffened a little, turned and glared. "I'm going to take a bath. Go away."

"I could wash your back," Kiba said, a tiny bit dreamily. Mophine was interesting.

"No you can't your arm's fucked up."

"Then could you wash mine?"

"You can wash your own."

"If I can wash mine I can wash yours."

Robin went properly rigid, jerked his door open, and slammed it in Kiba's face.

Kiba sighed. "Why nooooottttttttt?" He keened, sounding exactly like a sad puppy.

"Because!" Robin growled. "You're not being honest with me!"

Kiba decided, staring at the door, that maybe morphine was a bad thing. Because it took him a full two seconds to come up with ' _ You wear a mask to hide you face, run all around fucking everywhere, and get mad if I call you your name in a crowd if you're properly dressed!' _

Morphine, therefore, was dulling his edge. Therefore. Fuck morphine. 

"I'm supposed to be?" Kiba managed. "Roooobbbbiiiinnnn let meeee innnnnn!"

"STop calling me that!"

"Seexxxxxy boy let me in!"

They had just spent nearly three days in 40 below temps but the silent response was  _ still  _ colder.

Kiba pouted at the wood. Groaned. he'd just pouted at WOOD. Woooooood. He'd wasted a grade-a pout on WOOD.

Hell with this he was gonna go sleep until the drugs wore off and he could focus properly on getting himself some sex.


	7. Chapter 7

 

Tim had a scalding bath and it was FABULOUS. Beyond MEASURE. 

 

And it was totally ruined by the paranoid belief that ANY MINUTE NOW Kiba'd show up.

 

He had actually put bubble-soap into the water to keep leering eyes from looking at his... Toes.

 

When the water went from boil to hot to bath to tepid, it was ruined  _ again  _ when he realized that he wasn't going to be interrupted and had wasted all that vigilance. 

 

**************

  
  
  
  


It was the morphine wearing off, letting Kiba feel pain and thought processes clearly again, that made him wake up.

 

The pain, really, wans't so bad. Either body'd decided that his brain didn't need a memo every two seconds informing him his arm was broken, or his brain had started to shunt those messages to the side, but his arm was just dull throb now and he'd had more painful cases of blue balls.

 

The thought processes, however...

 

_ Oh they're gonna be soooooo mad! _  He thought, half slamming into the floor, tripping over a sleepy Akumaru. 

 

He'd just ignored Itachi, that had been. That was insanely stupid. Never mind, his past or his sanity or what his motives were, he wasn't a part of the new village yet, so he didn't know what the rest of the world knew! _  I told him to talk, not when to stop! _

 

And they'd worked so HARD to create their illusion, too! The poor English, the carefully, politely discussed 'treaty' of sorts they had with Bruce, the fact that...

 

He'd gone to sleep with his Ipod on. ' _ I never told you what I do for a living'  _  was playing. 

 

"Fuck the irony gods," he snarled, taking the stairs seven at a time. "Fuck them fuck them fuck them!"

 

It'd seemed like such a better idea to just take Itachi Back with them, let him be absorbed into the whole of the village, be let in on the plans and so forth there! 

 

Why the hell not?! Who was he going to talk too? Robin? Maybe, but Kiba would have been able to distract Robin. More flirting, diverting the conversation, giving Itachi something with an interesting texture. Or chocolate. GOD the chocolate here was so damn good. And cheesecake! 

 

Who would Itachi talk too? When he didn't know anything about anyone except what little Kiba'd handed over as gossip?

 

Dick Grayson, that's who.

 

All of Kiba's fears were realized at once when he realized Itachi had not MOVED from the phone since, since,

 

Kiba looked at the clock, tried to guess at when he'd gone to bed.

 

Four hours!?!

 

_ 性交性交性交 _ !!!!!! ! 

 

Itachi just, tilted his face in Kiba's direction and smiled. "Oh! Good! You're going home now but Robin is taking me to Utah."

**********

  
  
  
  


Kiba wasn't there when Tim woke up.

 

Well, obviously he wouldn't be RIGHT there...

 

But he wasn't in the building at ALL. Akumaru was gone, too.

 

Itachi was still there though, still holding the phone, looking like a porceilen doll wrapped in a bear skin. 

 

The deep boop-booop-boop of a dead line droned out of it when Tim leaned his head down.

 

He looked at Itachi. Itahci didn't seem to be paying attention to him... He hadn't walked up THAT quietly.

 

"Itachi?"

 

"Yes Sasuke?" Itachi said, barely moving. His lips curved. "Everyone is so mad at you."

 

"... who?"

 

Itachi blinked. His head rolled back so suddenly that Tim expected to see it bounce away across the floor. The crackle of the spine of a man who had been unmoving all night filled the air as Itachi stretched.

 

"Utah, we go now," Itachi said, still seeming to speak to the phone. "Now, now."

 

"Speak properly," Tim said, frowning. "I know you can. And you can put the phone down."

 

Itachi nodded and dropped it. It clattered on the floor, but he didn't seem to mind. "If you want. Kiba seemed, upset when he left."

 

"What happened?"

 

Itachi smiled. Gestured broadly. "I had a partner who was very against the status quo and he rubbed off on me.  I had a nice talk with Mr. Penis about what I was capable of, and now we're going to Utah."

 

"... Utah? Why are we going to Utah? What's in Utah?"

 

"Cadmus. Oh, He said to tell you 'chin up, Timmy, at least it's warmer there'," Itachi said, and this time his bandaged hands fluttered up and around. 

 

"The bi-wing'll take us to a real airport," Itachi added. He knelt, gathered the thick hide around himself. "Come on, lead the way."

 

"And Kiba is where?"

 

"Getting yelled at for not telling me when to shut up," Itachi said. "Apparently the job definition of our old lives has better prettied up into warrior and so forth when really most of our training was to avoid a fair fight. You see, the thing about a fair fight is you might loose it."

 

"If you don't call yourselves fighters, what words do you use?"

 

"Assassin, mostly. Thief? Mercenary," Itachi finally shut his eyes and Tim felt a part of himself relax. "I remember my first kill but the rest all blurred. And then of course when I left there were so many, but it's funny you remember things like family. And their special screams."

 

Tim felt like he was watching a movie, at this point and didn't put any effort into correcting that mental defense.

 

"Oh, yes I didn't kill my brother but I was only thirteen. You make mistakes at that age," Itahci added. Bandaged hands came up, touched what was left of his hair. All different lengths, dry now, fluffy. Static made it stand straight up in spots. Halo out in others. "And I swore I didn't see that much potential." 

 

Itachi stuck his finger's into his mouth. Well, where his finger's would be, in the linens, and bit. Pulled with his teeth, worrying the bandages off. 

 

"You shouldn't do that, your hands need to heal and," Tim started but Itachi half growled and for a second,

 

_ -Drowning, water like tar a ferociously lean red-eyed man with long black hair staring down through the water at him going 'ah, I see,'- _

 

Tim took the next breath in sharply.

 

It was hard to mentally turn the bandage chewing individual in front of him into that man, in the dream. Not-dream. The. Mental invasion. Itachi'd been in his HEAD.

 

"Un?" Itachi seemed very confused when Tim when very white and threw up.  A few uneven steps away to avoid the splash. " _ Duna taa uninth otant _ ," he said around a mouthful of gauze. He got the bandages off his hands, the raw-break points scabbed over and angry looking. But looking a week healed. "I didn't probe deeply. Sorry your remembering it."

 

Tim dry heaved.

 

Itachi patted his back with a hand that only had three fingernails on it. "You'll feel better in Utah."

******


	8. Chapter 8

 

Elsewhere....

 

Humming birds are rather amazing. 

 

Watch.

 

They can hover. Their wings beat between 10-25 times a second depending on breed.

 

Watch.

 

They migrate from north America to south America. 

 

Watch.

 

The ruby throated humming bird can fly 800 miles in one GO over the Gulph of Mexico, storing up fat before that trip.

 

Watch. Three of them, now. 

 

They could hover, they could go backwards on their carefully made vortexes.

 

They do not.

 

Their flight paths, draw onto paper, would form a loose pattern of wavy lines.

 

They took turns on point, chittering occasionally. Deep green backs, iridescent throats.

 

A bird watcher would have been confused by the small black feathered crests on their heads.

 

They would have really lost it when they noticed the tiny Obi's, or that these humming birds were the size of pigeons. 

 

Watch.  A city on the horizon. It is shiny and concrete, it is white. There are many building, but they focus on one in particular. 

 

Hummingbirds do not care much about brass and steel unless it is holding a glass ball of sugar water. They noted the large globe anyway, in case there was sugar that they missed and could investigate later. 

 

They circled, found a window. Zooomed in. 

 

Most people just whipped their heads around as they zoomed past like ballistic missiles.

 

Watch. One man isn't startled by them. He turns his head, and watches them go by.

 

He is the only person there who notes the Obi and the Crests while the trio is still in flight.

 

Watch.

 

The secretary, chewing a pencil aggressively, was the only one that didn't look up.

 

Even when they perched on her desk, topping her pencil holder and the quote-a-day calender.

 

One pooped on her desk. She glared at it. 

 

"I see you. Let me finish this memo," she told it. "I felt them let you on out of your cage."

 

They ruffled up, looking like like puffballs. Standing still, the black crests looked even more ornate. Almost like little top buns. Styled.

 

She shoved her coke at them. "Here, drink this," she told them, oblivious to the fact that people were gathering.

 

They clustered around the metal can, thrilled. 

 

"Naomi?" Someone asked. She glanced up at her now-ex-boss-who-didn't-know-it-yet and smiled.

 

"Nami. It's actually Nami," she said. She hit send, and closed the lap top. Gave it a pet. "I really liked that thing, but I suppose it belong to the Planet..."

 

She didn't look at anyone when she stood up, but there was a sudden, AIR to her that no one (almost no one. Only one, really) had noticed to her before. 

 

Everyone took a step back when she turned sharp as steel and saluted Perry White, her grinned suddenly cheeky.

 

Watch as Naomi, the soft spoken woman with the mild accent, with her slightly relaxed clothes and curled-in-posture dies.

 

Watch.

 

Nami seemed taller even as she was kicking out of her pumps. She held her head up higher, hands unbuttoning her shirt. Throwing it off. She left on the tie.

 

The humming birds on the desk  finished the coke and with a rustle of post it's were back in the air, bobbing and weaving around her head. 

 

Watch as she unties her necklace. Thin silver chain. See as it get's longer.

 

Watch as the window in front of her is suddenly dust while she steps out of her knee length skirt.

 

The men in the office (and the three lesbians) took note of her black lace for a moment. 

 

Then everyone took note of the way she sprung forward. How far out she got with that last leap out into the air, arms out, before she was out of sight and the staff of the Daily Planet was gathering around the open window. Most of the staff.

 

They were all blown back when something large and dark ripped past, chittering.

 

Dark in the sky a moment, then gone.

 

Only one person could see all the individual birds in the swarm, thought a few got the impression that in the middle there was one the dwarfed the rest.

 

"Someone..." Perry started, breathing in...

 

"I'll go to her place, boss!"

 

"I'll call the Janitor."

 

"I'll go through her desk."

 

"I'll go downstairs and make sure she's not dead."

 

"I've got her laptop!"

 

"Did anyone get a picture of that?"

 

"I'll go see if it'll turn out!"

 

And the vultures descended.

 

Except one.

******

  
  


"That was dramatic."

 

Nami was busy using a sharp, dark blade to hack her hair off. It had been bun length, Naomi'd worn it pinned up. Nami liked it short. "Yes, well, that's what three birds meant, see? And now I tell everyone else."

 

The bird she was on had crimson feathers, gold in it's black crest, and a wide green Obi that Nami was using for a saddle while pulling things out of it. So far she'd found a vest and a skirt that barely counted.  "How long have you had me made?"

 

"About a year."

 

"Be honest."

 

"I am. I was busy before then. And it was when you got mugged."

 

Nami sighed, rolled to her back, on the bird, stared up at the flying man. "I'd had a drink or three at the office party. Forgot to be a victim for a second."

 

"That man was lucky I was there, wasn't he?"

 

"He would have lived. He might not have been able to procreate for a month or two but you can hardly call that a great loss for society," she retorted, stretching. "Good to know that chakra control and VERY good acting combined with diet change and deep, deep cover are enough to deceive you," she added, smiling and pulling sticky red lip gloss out of the vest.

 

Superman's nose wrinkled. "Poisoned?"

 

"Well, it's my favorite color, and when you're going too see an old friend it's important to look your best," she said, smacking her lips once or twice. "Don't you think?"

 

"I think we're heading towards Metropolis General Hospital," he responded.

 

"No, Clark, I'm heading there. You're just sort of following along. Like a super-puppy."

 

Superman crossed his arms. 

 

"Haaa, don't worry we know better than to say that too loud. But you should know there are two hundred of us who think you look better in glasses and a damn fool with that hair."

 

"Two hundred?"

 

She nodded as the bird under her started a steep dive. "Well, one hundred and forty three, but that's not bad, really! It will be nice to see the unhidden village for the first time. They found me in Mexico, but I learned English pretty good, don't you think?"

 

She jumped when they were over the sprawling building, landed light on a fire escape. Her mount and the flock angled up to circle, hiding in the sun. Three tiny birds stayed with her, the size of bumble bee's, and a few moments with the nearest window let them in.

 

She scaled quickly to the roof. "You're watching them, I know you are. What do you see?"

 

"I see three humming birds with tiny silk sashes heading towards the maternity ward."

 

She nodded. "Yes, that's right."

 

"They have things tucked in those sashes..."

 

"Those would be tiny poison beads, actually. Don't worry. Three humming birds means big, flash bloodfree exit."

 

"How many means a rain of poison?"

 

"One that's a little on fire."

 

"They're going past a nurse... past, into... No, they're..." He paused. "The Nurse is one of you?"

 

"Okawa Rei," Nami said softly, smiling.

 

"He's shooed the birds off, and he's walking..."

 

"Towards the nearest exit?"

 

"He's stopping..."

 

Nami frowned. "He should be going to the nearest exit, post haste..."

 

Superman frowned, and vanished in a ruffle of air.

*******

  
  
  


Nurse Oaks was what the name tag said. Well, R. N. Oaks. He was soft spoken, good with the babies. Excellent with the screaming pregenate women. He'd only been there two years but he already had one or two mother's asking him to be there for the delivery. Anyone who could make you feel that cheerful just while taking a blood sample?

 

He was well liked.

 

Everyone thought the time he spent in the cancer wards should have him nominated for sainthood. He was always taking one last round to check on his patients.

 

Patients like Leroy Jones.

 

Leroy Jones was ninety three years old. He'd survived world war two, but lost a leg. He'd had three wives, six kids, ten nieces and nephews.

He'd adapted to tech as best he could. He'd driven a fatboy back when that was still cool, and there had been fewer RUBS. He had a few gay grandchildren. He'd given one away at his wedding. It had been strange, and he wasn't sure what Nancy had done that made Kevin turn out so strange, but they'd seemed happy enough and they'd asked.

 

Leroy Jones was now dying.

 

Old age, plain and simply. A mixture of maladies resulting from that. His mind wandered, but he didn't have alzhimers. His hands shook, but it wasn't Parkinsons.

 

He was, as he said, just OLD. Skin like an onion, lumps that were just lumps, not cancer. 

 

He'd had a cigar and a bourbon every night until his doctors and his third wife-rest-her-soul had bullied him out of it.

 

He missed that.

 

His family visited often, really, formerly-nurse-Oaks thought. Leroy Jones was lucky like that.

 

"Oaks?" Leroy jerked a little on the wake up. "Boy, I told you not to sneak up on me,"

 

"Okawa," Rei corrected. "My name is actually Okawa Rei."

 

"Sounds kinda Japanese. Did you go and get gay-married to a Japanese boy?"

 

Rei laughed, softly, put his hand over Leroy's. "No, Mr. Jones, that's just what my name has always been. Oaks is assumed."

 

Leroy looks confused. "Why'd you got to go and change your name for then?"

 

"It's a general first step in assuming a new identity. New name. New face. The whole package."

 

Leroy looked left, and right and cackled a little. It showed his bare gums, and he brought up his other hand to wipe his mouth. "You in the program?" He asked, eyes lighting up. Leroy Jones loved shows like Law and Order, reading Grisham books in large print, CSI. "Did you see someone kill someone else?'

 

Okawa Rei leaned, closer. "Several someone's killing several other people. One of them's here, now. So I wanted to say goodbye to you." 

 

Leroy looked worried. Rei patted his hand. 

 

The arm went, oddly numb, a moment. "I think that you should go to that family reunion, Mr. Jones. You don't have another year in you, but I think the next few months might be your best. Brightest just before nightfall, you know?"

 

"Darkest before dawn. You always did get that wrong." Leroy said, giving Rei a look.

 

"Of course," Rei agreed.

 

Leroy's mind was, popping along, suddenly. Clearly. Sharply. He looked down at his hand. "You've got blue on you," he started, as Rei withdrew his hands. 

 

But when he looked up the man was gone.

 

Leroy ran his tongue along his gums. His stump barely hurt at all, suddenly.

 

He reached for his dentures and rang for the nurse.

*****

  
  
  


"What did you do to him?"

 

Rei blinked. Tilted his head. "I held his hand, and listened to his stories." 

 

"What did you do to him just NOW?"

 

Rei didn't seem to mind having to tilt his head up to look at Superman's face. "I've put his body back into a sort of balance. He'll feel fifty years younger. For a while. Then it'll wear off, and the cancer I've kept from spreading will kill him in a month. It will be very fast." 

 

"How?"

 

"I control hormones through skin contact," Rei said, bluntly. "Now, if you'll excuse me?"

 

"Why were you HERE?"

 

"Why aren't you? You could save the uninsured a fortune on X-rays," Rei said. "Why don't you spend more time delivering food to the hungry? I was here because I was told to be here. Now I'm leaving."

 

Rei walked silently, in  very straight line, straight to the fire escape. He wouldn't have attracted any attention if he hadn't been followed by a man in a red cape.  "To Montana?"

 

"Yes."

 

"You're being awfully forthcoming."

 

"We're under orders to be straightforward with you once found out."

 

"I had Nami made a year ago."

 

"Your mother must be very proud," Rei started, then stopped. He stood still a moment, eyes closed.

 

When he opened his eyes his face was blank as a mask. He resumed walking, straightening up his shoulders, posture improving, stride lengthening a little.

 

Superman's eyes weren't telling him much. He could, see inside the other man, yes, he could even zoom in but whatever Rei had just done was on some chemical level and he didn't know where to start.

 

The change was slight, but enough that he could admire the extent of the disguise. Rei's scent had changed, the rhythm of his heartbeat had slowed.  "I take it this is the real you?"

 

Rei brought his hands up, together, and there was a slightly acidic smelling cloud of steam and the man was gone.

 

Superman'd seen that one, before. They didn't go FAR with it. A scan of the building showed his reappearing on the roof, next to Nami.

 

He followed.

 

**********

  
  
  
  


Kiba hadn't been beaten like that since ole Shika'd made chunnin. Holy hells. It was like his sister'd come back from the dead just to chew on him.

 

Akumaru whined and licked him, worried.

 

Kiba groaned and stretched out an arm. Fuck drinking games, FUCK them. Some flailing found him a flask for a...

 

Hair of the dog.

 

He'd thought it was stupid when he'd gotten the flask with that on the side, but still.

 

"Glub gulg," he told it, taking a long swallow. Akumaru whined and he poured some into her mouth too. Tossed the flask back into the corner. Normally he didn't GET that drunk. So Normally, he never needed that flask.

 

But fuck, getting back home last night, alone and unlaid, getting kicked around a little, getting yelled at and THEN...

 

Then Itachi calling THEM!l Kiba didn't know what the hell that man had said but suddenly it was party time and while he wasn't forgiven (people kept punching him in the arm, HARD) he was still given drinks and now?

 

Now there were forty VERY hung over fighters, and a few put out ones that had to do border patrols walking around kicking their grouchy brethren awake so they could go to the village center.

 

Kiba had too well trained a system to throw up. But the nausea had him sticking fingers down his throat to get it damn well over with. 

 

One long  series of heaves later and he was rinsing with water, then salt, then staggering outside. 

 

Fuck the sky was blinding and...

 

Alive..

 

He squinted. What he had thought were just, the motes of inebritation were in fact. Umm. What were they? Ah... 

 

Birds.

 

Three types, all flocking. 

 

He squinted harder.

 

No, wait two types. Fast and buzzing, bright and loud, and butterflies.

 

Huh. He knew that leaf had a few bird summoners. He wondered if the bugs were from Grass...

 

Shino'd never had anything that pretty. Kiba felt an ugly wretch at that name and blamed that...

 

He sniffed his puke bucket thoughtfully. Rum. Yes. He blamed the rum.

 

It was sweet enough that it gathered butterflies and he tried not to think about that. He needed to run, now, before the calories converted to energy converted to chakra converted to energy again converted to fat. His pants fit snug right now because he liked them like that but he didn't need to buy new ones yet.

 

Heh. The butterflies had words patterned into their wings. Patterned faces. And several had the question mark of the village on their backs now. That was kinda cool.

 

"Hey, you must be the reason I'm here!" Said a cheerful voice.

 

Kiba turned. ANd promptly got punched in the shoulder. In the BRUISE that was forming. "Urf!"

 

The amazon that had hit him was six feet tall, built like tank with tits, red hair down to her knees. She would have been hailed as a Goddess at any convention that involved the phrase 'pop culture' in it's description. Or the anagram BDSM. "I kind a liked Russia," she said, reproachfully. "I had a nice fur coat there."

 

"Sorry?"

 

"And the food was good."

 

"Are these your butterflies?"

 

"Yes."

 

"In Russia? Seriously?"

 

"They are really more like moths. Fuzzy. See?" She held out an arm, and it was coated in a heartbeat with a plethora of wing shapes and styles and colors and patterns. But they were all fuzzy. Many had large antenna. 

 

"Ahh. Cool?"

 

She hit him again. "You go to the center now."

 

Kiba wasn't looking forward to that.

 

He was probably gonna get his ass kicked again.


	9. Chapter 9

Now time flows.

Watch it speed up. 

Many things are happening at once now.

A hundred fighters line the edges of the old quarry. They sit on the roofs, they eat and observe. The basin, grown thick with grass, used for training until now, is being hastily turned into a stage, with microphones.

Democracy, the ringing loud hundred voices, means something sightly different here.

It means that when Batman comes to demand answers, when Superman comes to hear them,

They'll have to ask everyone at once.

 The mercenaries, because that is really what they are, mercenaries and spies, assassins, the lot of them, wait.

And eat fried things on sticks, because they love a good show. 


	10. Chapter 10

 

Let us return to Nami.

 

Or rather, to Naomi, now deceased.

 

It's where Lois is, anyway. Trying to find out something, anything, about the pleasant enough woman that had worked in the same building as her for nearly three years.

 

She'd been friends with a man from fact checking, named Henry, and Lois got the key from him before he could hear the news.

 

It'd been hell to beat that rumor down two flights of stairs in heels but she'd damn well done it and hopefully it'd take everyone else a minute to remember that Henry'd left that note up on his office cork board to remind him to water Naomi's plants. 

 

Now she was THERE, in the apartment. Dammit. God dammit.

 

There was...

 

She thought, carefully, started with the mail because it was by the door. Nothing. Well, not nothing. There was a catalogue from Victoria secrets, a few pieces of junk mail, a National Geographic, some political post cards, and  the PennySaver.

 

Well, she HAD been wearing rather.. Lacy and flashy underthings but that was hardly illegal. Lois owned a few items like that herself (although when  _ her  _ husband tore her clothes off there wasn't much left so she tried not to get anything too nice.)

 

Lois set the mail down. Shut the door and looked around.

 

It was. Clean, but a little messy? Clean dishes, but they were drying in the rack. Lois checked the fridge, found fruit, a six pack of rootbeer, cocacola, Senorial, some club soda, and a bottle of coconut rum. Bagels and cream cheese. Some thawing meat.

 

The freezer had more meat. Frozen banana's, bags of frozen berries and strawberries. Smoothie supplies.

 

Lois sighed, shut the freezer. Idiotic too check the fridge but...

 

When something that bizzare happens you scan everything, at least. She had a few flyer's on the fridge from a gym. Salsa dancing aerobics, sauna yoga. Lois wrote down the number.

 

Naomi had very nice knives. Not the highest quality ones, but the cleaver was a good one that Lois'd seen before. 

 

Not exactly a smoking gun. Yoga-practicing semi-chef...

 

Damn. Lois was starting to think that she should have grabbed the laptop.

 

Bedroom next. 

 

Naomi'd dressed, tidily. The closet doors were slide open. Again, clean but a little messy. PJ's hung out of a hamper. Clothes were, clothes. One designer little black dress in a dry cleaning bag. One little red dress next to it. A lot of shoes. Button up shirts. The drawers...

 

Well, aside from a gratuitous amount of lacy underwear and highly engineered matching bras. 

 

Again. Not. Typical? But not even the sort of little detail you could leverage into a bigger picture.

 

Jewelery box had some nice necklaces. Lois had seen some of them on her. Semiprecious stones. The bed was a queen, the carpet had throws on it. Her side table had a alarm clock and lamp.

 

The bathroom counter had makeup on it. Naomi'd had quite a collection of hair ties and sticks and clips.

 

... There were a few books in the basket next to the toilet. Lois's eyes lit up, because.. Finally! And sat down on the edge of the tub, picking up the blue bound book with the different colors ribbons.

 

A day planner!

 

That should have, something, right? Contacts, any possible dates, what Naomi'd gotten wrapped up in?

......

 

And half hour later, and zitlch. Not a whole lot. Enough written in for the next two month that it was hard to believe that Naomi'd planned to leave today. 

 Lois stuffed it into her bag and frowned. That was with. She was gonna tear the place apart. Starting with this room, then the living room, then the kitchen, then the bedroom....

Wait what was that?

That noise.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

From the living room...

Tick tick.

Oh, she knew that noise, that was a countdown tiiiicktick.

Tick. 

Tick.

Tick.

<i>Ding</i>

******

"But! But, he's in a clean room,"

"Go away."

"It's important that you wear the-"

"Go away or I will cut you into little pieces and feed you to him like grapes," was the serene reply.

"Listen..."

"No, he kinda means it," Tim said, tiredly. Touching Sterlings sleeve. "Come on. Let's go talk."

*****

"Oh good, Lois, You're here." Perry looked up, traces of hopefulness in his face. "What'd you find?"

"She had a timer rigged..." Lois said slowly. She could tell from the faces of everyone in the room that they were really hoping for a bomb. "Connected to her bird cage. To let them out if it wasn't turned back every twelve hours."

Finches. Small and colorful. Chirpy, loud. Out the window. She'd stopped a few from getting out but..

"About a dozen finches got out but the ones that were left. Maybe hundred dollar birds. Not, cheap... But not really exotic I called ten pet stores, seven carried them," she exhaled. Slapped the day planner down.  "Go ahead. Tear through it. Nothing. Aside from an utter lack of cotton undergarments and a timer on her bird lock..."

"Anyone else?" Perry half barked.

"She never missed a yoga class?" Someone volunteered. 

"She used the internet for personal use while on the clock?"

"Ohh, for what?"

"Email. Wiki, mostly? Ah, ebay? Trying to get a Tokidoki purse, but it timed out. And lots of Victoria Secret bookmarks," someone said hopefully. 

"A lot of soda in her desk. She used one of the drawers for it."

"That's not a bad idea."

"I  _ know _ ."

Perry slammed down a fist. "She was here over two years! We've got her computer, her apartment, her phone! And you're telling me that aside from the fact that she jumped out a window six hours ago she's not newsworthy?"

There was silence.

"Well, aside from that and the hummingbirds..." Someone said. 

"Nothing Chief," Lois said. "Yet."

************

Batman had certain ways of asking questions that he preferred. This way involved heights, and darkness, and people with guilty consciences (in Batman's world that was everyone). This way, which worked well, didn't usually involve..

Popcorn and meaty things on sticks, had never been involved. As far as he knew. And he KNEW dammit. 

There were ten of them that counted as the leaders, they were the ones on the 'stage' with him. Superman was there too.

And a million butterflies. This was becoming, no, was, a farce of epic proportions.

The only silver lining was that the Joker wasn't likely to show up.

Some dark, treacherous part of him hoped that the smiling bastard WOULD show up. Batman knew how to DEAL with him once he hunted him down. It was simple. You hit him till he stopped it, because IT was always something rotten and treacherous. An even DARKER bit was pointing out that THIS crowd would probably turn the Joker into a fine red mist. He ignored that bit and successfully glowered at all ten people on stage, Superman, and the eighty other people there. The Audience. 

The mercenaries seemed to approve. Batman didn't like that. Nightwing would have, he hated to admit it, been better here. Nightwing liked the stage and the lime light.

"How many?"

"That's difficult to say," said a very large man with a scarred face and a black coat. Black gloves. He didn't seem to notice when Superman gave him a level look. "How many of us do you have in underground labs?"

Batman didn't like the look on the large man's face because he recognized it. 

"They usually don't fall out of the sky onto your side," Superman said, carefully. "They have to be, recruited?"

"You've seen our power point. It's quite persuasive," Umino said cheerfully.  "And the League has been witness to most of our welcoming wagon. In fact, you usually call us." 

Batman recognized that face too. He wore it as Bruce, usually to parties. 

Superman was still giving them that blank look. But Umino just smiled back, and the scared man next to him was scanning some papers like he was bored with this meeting and just waiting for the five o'clock whistle. Batman knew what the paperwork said, too. It was an order for more cheese. Cafeteria stocking requests. Trivial shit that the man should be delegating.

It was deliberately insulting.

"Why weren't we informed?" Superman was asking.

Useless question. Batman knew the answer before the lean man at the end could even reply. "THey don't trust us."

There was light applause from the crowd.

"We do, to an extent," Umino said. "We trust you to be smart enough not to trust us. You see? Did you hide the crispy one because he was the first, or because of his unique physiology?"

"It certainly wasn't for his own good," said a woman with heavy beaded dredlocks. "Our medics could have gotten him upright again by now."

"They aren't sure they want that," said the scared man, looking up from his papers a moment. "Especially now that they know about our previous political situation. We had more backstabbing politics then and there than their Africa has today. Minus the guns and the blood diamonds."

"Because you were lying when you said you were warriors," Superman promted.

The crowd hissed. It was like having a Q&A session on a sitcom.

"We fought for our villages," Umino said sharply. "And if you don't think we're warriors, pick anyone here to have a spar with."

"Our villages, however, fought for the highest bidder." The scarred man said. Umino looked at him, nudged him and he let out a long suffering sigh before producing a nametag for himself. <i>Morino</i>, it said. "The elders and the Kage's decided what jobs we took."

"And the elders are all dust now!" Someone called out cheerfully. Light laughter rippled around from the crowd, fell silent when Morino glared.

"Oh, it's all well and good to have twenty twenty hindsight NOW," Umino said, standing up and facing the chastized gigglers. "And there was probably a lot less blood our way,  with all the quiet little deaths and thefts to keep everything on par with the status quo, but there isn't a person here who hasn't done something to give themselves nightmares because those wrinkled old farts told us it was for the village."

Batman wondered how much of THAT had been written in advance.

Superman leaned in. "It dosen't sound as if he's rehearsed it, but they are the best liars I've ever seen. You usually have to beleive it, to tell a lie that well." The man said.

"It wasn't a perfect system," The dredlocked woman (who had produced a name tag, and was called Jingo, apparently). "But it worked."

"It cost too damn much," Umino growled, sitting back down. Morino put a hand on his shoulder, a moment and stood.

"You wanted to know our intent, in scattering our people without telling you?" Morino asked, mellowly.

A silent confirmation from both Batman and Superman.

"Knowledge is power. And it's our way, to gather it. Besides. Nami is an excellent secretary, Okawa a very good doctor. We didn't place anyone in area's they were not fully qualified for."

"Okawa's hardly a real nurse."

"Okawa's right here," The man in question said, mildly. The upper half of his face was a solid dark tattoo now, blue, from the cheekbones up, even the eyelids. "Okawa can heal people by putting his hands on them and thinking hard about it. Do that teach that in your medical schools here?"

"They could if you choose to teach them," Batman pointed out.

"I can also cause amazing amounts of pain, and kill people by shaking their hands and stopping their hearts. Is that really a skill you want passed out like candy? You can't teach the healing without the dissection, after all. And people are so very immoral," Rei smiled, but it looked like he'd borrowed someone elses face for it.

Batman was torn between god-complex and sadist and mentally put a red marker over Rei's head.

"We put Okawa in the delivery ward because that where people question miracles the least," Umino added. "No one looks too hard when a newborn has a really dramatic turn for the better."

"What about Leroy then?" Superman asked, eyebrow arching.

"I'm not allowed to be sentimental?"

There was a very odd moment where all the shinobi thought about that. Batman looked at them, and tried to decide if they were thinking about that in a genral 'are we?' sort of way, or if it was just a strange thing for <i>this</i> man to say.

"You've been faking it as a civilian too long," said a half dressed woman next to him, petting a hummingbird the size of a king shepard.

Well that answered that question.

"That's a moot point," Jingo said, shaking her head. "You're annoyed we got away with it, and your extra annoyed that we havn't done anything far enough outside dubiously morally grey to warrent you doing more than checking up on us more often."

"And now you're going to want to tear the place apart," Morino nodded. "Put things back where you found them when your done. We're all here, we'll wait."

"Who's in the cafiteria?" Supperman asked, head turning, scanning.

"The delivery man waiting on these orders," Morino said, picking his pen back up.

"Tell him when need more of those peppers!" Someone yelled.

"If you haven't filled out a form by now you can wait till next month," Umino snapped.

"How many of you just left your... Undercover positions?" Superman asked, suddenly. "Did everyone do it by jumping out a window like Naomi?"

"It's  _ <i>Nami</i> _ ," the woman with the bird waved a hand. "I was the only one that did that. I was told vanishing suddenly would worry you more than a sudden absolutely unique experience. Besides, I'd really missed my birds and they figured I'd summon a bunch of them first thing anyway."

 "About eighty," Morino said, sliding one form to Umino, presumably for a signature. "Not everyone has a fast way to travel. We had two in Russia, three in Japan. Four in China. A few in Mexico, farther south. Thirty in Europe." He turned to Jingo, and she nodded.

The one with the white tightly braided hair tapped the table. "The thirty in Europe were floaters."

"Yes," Umino said. "I believe three are in Paris, ah, learning to cook properly."

 

"You expect us to believe your goals are culinary?" Batman said, tersely.

 

"Our goals are actually eventually social economic world domination in, say, a hundred and fifty years or so," said the man with blank green eyes, like a lizards. He smiled, wide. "Through legal channels, of course. Three hundred at the outside, we're good at long term goals. But cooking is a short term goal and Paris seemed like the place to go."

 

The audience nodded in agreement.

 

Even Superman seemed, tripped by that.

 

Usually when people told you they were going to take over the world, it involved a doomsday device, mind control, maniacal laugher... Not a... Committee. A polite committee, even, with memo's on the table. And fried things on a stick. 

 

"Information gathering is stage one," Umino added. "It's always stage one."

 

"Stage three is profit," someone yelled out. The crowd snickered.

 

"Kiba, you're in enough trouble as it is, do you WANT us to cut your cable?" Umino snapped.

"You've just stated..." Superman started.

"That we intended to study our new environment and place ourselves in positions of power through legal means. Well. Mostly legal. Obviously we have to get fake ID's, and so forth," said the white haired one. Jingo elbowed her, and the green eyed one, and their name tags popped up as Peralu and Genuko, respectively.

Peralu tilted her head, and Genuko continued. "And obviously we can't have anyone run for office until we have a natural born citizen. Not much point if they can't go all the way."

"Of course in some countries that's too much work so we'll settle for the economic choke hold," Genuko stopped as Peralu elbowed him. "Sorry. Economic short leash."

"And you think we'll, allow that?" Batman said, tone dark as he could make it. Which was pretty fucking dark.

"Why wouldn't you?" Umino asked, smiling. "You're allowed to try to stop us, of course. But all things considered, we talked a lot about this, and beside the fact a large goal keeps us all unified, there's really worse things we could be doing."

"We talked about a fifty year plan that would have gotten us control of the major organized crime families," Umino offered. "But that plan would have made us the target's of your Leauge, for starters. Higher body count, too. Since we would have had to selectively eliminate certain players. Plus any collateral damage from gun and drug running, and people to slow to get away from a burning building."

"Don't forget fire fighters."

"Yes. The possibility of civilian social workers getting injured was also problematic," Umino nodded.

"And man power," Genuko added. "It's easier to control a large group of law abiding citizens that a mob where everyone's gunning for the top. Plus the inevitable freedom fighters. The happier you keep everyone, the fewer people you have to genuinely watch out for."

"We thought we'd start with one of the unstable African countries," said the short red-head who'd been quiet until now. He looked a little young to be at the table. His name tag said, obnoxiously enough, 'G.J. Doe.' "Destablize the regime. Probably somewhere with diamonds. Wouldn't be to hard to improve a place like that, the native's would warm up fast to management that doesn't rape their women with knives."

"Or anything else," Morino added.

"I was there, I think that merely saying 'no more knife rape' would vastly improve the moral," Doe said sollemly.  "Also, letting people keep all their limbs for the duration of their lives."

Umino leaned back enough to look at Doe. Doe's face remained blank. "How did you not get discovered?" Umino asked, finally. "Your report's late." 

"No one really cares about them much, but they care less about the militants." 

"Ah." Umino shrugged, looked back to Superman. "Any other questions?"

There was an odd rustle as every single head in the seats of the amphitheater turned about five heartbeats before the rush of wind formerly known as the Flash came to a halt.

He was carrying a dark skinned girl with hot pink pigtails in a parka on his back. "Anyone wanna tell me why this girl didn't just sneak out of her school between classes, then snunk onto a jet heading this way? And I do mean <i>onto</i>..." 

"It would have been faster!" She hopped off him, hands on her hips. "It wouldn't have tried to take me back to the school seven damn times!"

"This," Batman said, softly to Superman, though it pained him to do so. "Is getting out of hand."

"Agreed." Superman snapped his fingers for attention. It reverberated like a gunshot in a closet.

"You could just raise your hand, you know," the pink haired girl told him. "Until someone calls on you."

Superman gave her a look. She looked unimpressed. 

"And where were you?" Batman asked.

"P.S. 143!" She said, broadly waving her arms out.

"She's lying, I asked they don't have an Emily Jones on record," Flash said.

"Gotham City public school, daaahh. I told you that I was only in your stupid airport on a transfer," she said, cracking her gum and gesturing rather rudely. "Whose fault was it that we got called in?"

<i>" KIBA,"</i> boomed the crowd. And everyone at the table.

She walked smartly up the steps to punch Kiba hard in the arm. Then sat next to him. "Rocking. I had a health test tomorrow." 

"But I still get hit?" Kiba asked pitifully.

Batman was still trying to get his blood to stop boiling. T _ hey'd had one, in his city? In HIS city? _

Lesser men would have frothed. Possibly hauled off and hit a few people. <i>No meta's... In my city...</i>

Prehaps because of the rate that Flash had to take in information to react properly at high speeds, he was the first to take a step away from Batman.

"Who else do you have in my city?" Batman said, and he was deeply pleased wit hthe fact that he didn't quite grit it out between his teeth.

"Three in Arkham," the pink haired girl said. "One as an inmate and two as guards."

"And what were you doing there?" Superman asked. Probably for the best.

"I was looking at the inside of the most insipide abandoned child care system it think I've ever seen, and they were keeping the level of breakouts on the decline," Pinkhaired said again. "We didn't interfer with anything else."

"Ah," Superman nodded. "And your name?"

"Kinjo," she said. "Jane Doe Kinjo."

Batman almost snarled. "Jane Doe?"

"Not everyone here has a family name," she said. "So the girls took Jane Doe, and the boys took John Doe. To make things simple.

Batman wasn't sure what he wanted to do at this point. Cage them all up, for starters. But there wasn't a lot he COULD do, and he hated having to admit it. He was in a poorly defensible position against a bunch of hyper trained meta-like humanoids. Might as well be magic users. 

Superman cut in, again. "What did your foster family call you then, Kinjo?"

"Janet Hart," Kinjo said, lips twitching.

"Janet Hart should go home before her foster parents and siblings worry," Superman said. 

Kinjo looked at the people at the table.

"Are you going to want everyone to go back?" Morino asked, mildly.

"Yes, and a  _ list  _ of where they are."

"As they arrive and turn in their reports, we'll send them back, and we can have them call you," G.J. Doe said. "Or rather, they will. If you need me, personally. I'll be in the Congo. They have. Bad cell reception there, so if you or anyone in the league need me, you can just go look." He stood up, bowed politely and left.

Nothing fancy, he just walked, shifting the leather canteen he carried on his back. Paused only to hit Kiba in the shoulder. 

Kinjo groaned. "I guess I'll go back to school in the morning, then." Her eyes opened, and she gave Batman a look. "Can I catch a lift then?"

********

 

Kinjo ended up getting a ride with Rei, who borrowed a bird.

Batman. Left. Superman knew apocalyptic rage when he saw it and wondered if the words 'nuclear strike' had fluttered across the man brain yet. 

It'd certainly fluttered across his, Superman mused. Except they weren't all in one spot, and really, they probably never had been. And even if there was only as many of them as they claimed? That was still seventy some highly trained superpowers who would probably dislike if it their home base turned into a crater.

The other people in Montana might not like it either, big radioactive crater. 

Nami was standing on the edge of the arena, now, the crowd was dispersing. She hummed, rubbing the horse sized Hummingbird under it's chin. "You really think it's wise for me to just, waaaander back into work tomorrow? That's the equivalent of going public, you know."

"I have an odd feeling that someone thought of that," Superman said.

"Do you?" She grinned, wide. Someone had tossed her a bag of something that didn't have any obvious weapons in it. But there were a pair of boots. Thigh high, combat boots. And she's sprouted fishnets like it was a skin fungus of some sort, the short skirt was a little longer, or maybe just hanging lower, with more buckles on it.

Superman didn't feel he could refer to it as unprofessional, since he worked with Black Canary, but there was something deliberately aggressive about it on her. On all of them, really. Every villager who had come in over the last few days was dropping the respectable outfit of various professions and gaining acres of exposed skin and the patina of kink. 

Plus that vest was full of sharp metal things. Mostly throwing knives, to match the large buck knife of her hip.

"You need to loose the poisoned lipgloss."

"Then I'll need to stop at a M.A.C. store," she said, with a vague gesture. "It's not that strong a poison. I mean, delayed reaction, even. Not like I even have my cyanide top coat." She hopped into the  bird's back, using the top of the knot in the obi as a sort of seat, putting her arms around the birds neck. 

Superman followed. "Let's go to your apartment, first," he suggested.

"Whaatever you say Clark."

***********

From this point, things happened quickly. Like domino's falling in a tindy little row.

Click click click click.

There aren't enough words in the theasrus for apocolyptic and enraged and fuming to properly describe the bat-tantrum that occured. It manifested as nearly ten hours of frigid silence and around two hundred fractures perpetrated on criminals who hadn't lived in Gotham long enough to sense when the Bat was having a bad day.

Some people worried about the weather. Stan the car theif would have been among the first to tell you that in Gotham, if you were breaking the law, you were more concerned about when the pointy ear'd urban legend got laid last.

Stan, as a side note, had felt an ache in the screws in his jaw bone and wisely stayed home that night watching reruns of Law and Order and rubbing his pet lizards head.

Click click click.

Nami took one look at the mess of her apartment and called Lois Lane.

Lois cleaned up while Nami ate ice cream and answered questions next to a tape recorder.

Click click.

Leroy Jones booked passage on a world trip, and ignored the doctors demands for more blood tests.

Click click.

Rei told them that he'd been dumped and been broken up. He told his superior that while holding the mans hand. The man bought it. Rei set about having his name changed to Rei officially because he was lazy and liked his real name better.  

Click. Click.

The extent of the village, the sheer number of fallen mercenaries was downplayed in the article. But Nami and her hummingbirds was still the front page.

Click click.

<What do you want to do when you grow up?>

<I want to kill the men that hurt my mommy.>

<Ah. I am sorry then.>

The child looked up, confused.

<They are already dead. You have interesting energies. Want to learn how to hurt other men LIKE the ones outside?> 

 

Click. Click.


	11. Chapter 11

"But you've been in a COMA for almost five years!" Sterling wailed. "Your muscles should have atrophied! Not GROWN BACK! You didn't have a penis when we brought you in!"

 

 Itachi's hands went up to his face. "Not little blue!!"

 

"It's FINE. I just need to carve some scar tissue off it..."

 

Itachi paused, head tilting. ".... can I help?"

 

"No. I'm mad at you for giving up on life," came the almost hoarse response. 

 

"And WHAT did he paint all over the skin we put on him!"

"But you weren't there!" Itachi said, almost keening.

The sound gave Tim a head ache. 

"They're called seals," the hulking man said. Where the skin, the cadaver skin hung off his, blue and red shone through. The sword rattled on the bed.

"But we have to run TESTS! We have so many questions!" She wailed.

"I'll leave the sword. It should stop robbing you of life now," the man said. "I won't even charge you that much to rent it."

Sterling blinked. "Charge?"

"Yeah. You know. Dollars, right? I've been listening really GOOD for the last three years. Listening is all I've been ABLE to do..." He picked up a scalpel and eyed it. Brought it to his side and cut away the sloughing off pink. Red welled underneath it. There was a strange sucking noise.

Tim just stared and waited. It was what you DID with these people after all. They started to do something strange and your options were to sit on your thumb and wait or try to knock them out as quickly as you could and talk to them when they came to. After you'd made ample use of several rolls of duct tape to get their damn hands still. When a wet noise marked the meeting of flesh and floor, he wasn't that surprised to see blue skin and gills.

The blue skin was bleeding in the same lacy pattern as the ink and blood Itachi'd frantically scrawled all over the flesh mummy. 

Tim wondered how many years past the proper training age he was to learn how to cure full body third degree burns with finger painting. 

The process was repeated, peeling away.

Sterling was flailing a little. "Some one tell me the camera's are working! Please, PLEASE let us put you in the mri? Just for a while? An hour or two!?" 

"Maybe for money," The man said. "I'm gonna need some of that, after all." 

"Do you want to go to the village?" Tim asked. He tried not to look at the shed skin. Or the very BLUE naked man that Itachi was petting in little spurts, bandaged hands absorbing blood.  

"I don't know. Do I?"

Itachi's shoulders twitched in what might have been a shrug. "Go. Say hi. Then we'll go somewhere."

"You pick a place already?"

"Of course. It's somewhere waarrrrm, Kisame," Itachi said.

Kisame nodded. "Whatever makes you happy."

"A blood sample," Sterling went on. "Just one more, to see if it's different now!"

"Mother's above, woman didn't you stick me with enough needles?"

"But you weren't UPRIGHT then!"

"Get me clothes, and I'll let you do three tests," Kisame said. "Three short ones."

Sterling ran off. Then ran back. "I need to measure you."

"That's test one then."

Tim noted that the scars were layered. Almost like lace. The still red pattern of whatever Itachi'd done over the wax like haze of the burns, over faint scars that you'd think the fire would have eradicated. 

These people seemed to accumulate the  _ idea  _ of scars more than real scars. A  _ normal _  human'd have thick twisting ropes of scar tissue from the damage they seemed to be able to take, judging from Kiba's descriptions of the wounds that gave him his marks. THEY just had the impression of scars. Raised patterns, discolored area's like tattoos.

Kisame had scars that seemed to indicate a normal human would be DEAD. 

"You were the first one we found alive," Tim said as Sterling skittered off. "Do you remember what happened?" 

"Vaugly," Kisame said, without elaboration. 

Tim sighed. He hadn't really expected a explanation. Most of the villagers hadn't been near the epicenter, and the ones that possibly might have been all had a great, convenient gaping hole in their memories about it. 

It was the sort of memory lapse that Batman tended to cure with a few blows to the gut, followed by a visit to one of the taller sky scrapers in Gotham. Superman used a similar method, only he didn't need to find a sky scraper first.

But you could not DO that to these people. Hauling someone five hundred feet up after they'd survived a fall through the atmosphere usually just resulted in them looking around, going ' _ ah, hey, I can see my house from here _ ' which wasn't the same as a deeply heartfelt rattling off of the  _ truth _ . 

"What.. did his brother do?" Tim asked, finally, looking at Itachi, who was now sitting next to the large sword and petting it like he'd just been reunited with his puppy. 

The blue man had a very grim sort of smile that didn't show teeth. "The inevitable, I suppose."

 

Click. Click.

 

The the domino's kept falling, little  ones, big ones. 

 

It would be nearly impossible to describe them all. Counter productive, certainly. That would bring us too close to Sterlings world view, with god lodged neatly in the details.

God is IN the details, of course.

Many gods are. There is a lot of space in the details after all.

But if every god is in every detail then, as any artist will tell you, god is certainly also in the big picture. Much the same way the color of the paper shows in a water color. Or black pigment in the jar you clean your brushes in.

So we leave the dominoes a moment to pull back. Father back. 

Time goes faster form back here. 

The idea of strangers from another universe is depressingly normal to most of the world.

The idea of refugee's is a bit novel, though. Nami as the cover girl for the new wave of inhabitant's was a bit on the scandalous side but her utter un-interest in meddling in things that didn't really directly affect her and her tendency NOT to do utterly outrageous things other than occasionally wear mens shirts without buttons meant that while she had a sort of celebrity to her, she didn't dominate headlines for long. 

The nickname 'Fallen One's' caught on, though. 

And so, six months from Itachi's three hour phonecall, the big picture doesn't appear to have changed. Until you hold it right up against a snapshot of before.

And if you held it up, right up, just right in the light, you would see the long thing strands of new thread in the tapestry. Metallic. Not gold, maybe. Steel. Perhaps.

The domino's are fallen. The dice are cast.

Now we move back in.


	12. Chapter 12

 

Six months later, and Batman was still frigid about the whole thing.

Tim, Robin, at the moment, wasn't that surprised. It'd be strange, really, if the man let it go. And why should he let it go. He hadn't stumbled upon a global plot, he'd had it explained. With slides. But it was the sort of global plan you couldn't do much about.

Like Mormon missionaries, who were blatantly out there to save people from their own immorality and convert them to a new immorality. 

There was't any rule against that. You could, in theory, get them all for false ID's... But if  _ they _  kicked the villagers out, other nations would LEAP at the chance to have the tricky bastards working for them, and would give them proper paperwork. 

So THAT was out. They just had to wait and see if they did anything really, truly illegal other than plan to take over the world. 

Robin put his gloved finger on a bit of peeling tar paper that had fallen off the roof to sit on this ledge.

When he lifted his hand, the tar paper stuck as if it'd been glued. Robin smiled. It was getting easier. He hadn't stopped practicing, only now he did it in and out of costume.

"Very good!" Said a encouraging voice right behind him that was both familiar and unexpected.

Robin, for the very first time in quite a while, nearly fell off the building without anyone tossing or kicking him or anything blowing up. 

Kiba grabbed his cape and tugged him back. "Oh, I've showered! Don't smell so bad you have to jump, see?"

Robin tried to hit him on principle and was so startled when his fist connected that he almost fell off again. 

Kiba righted him again and rubbed his jaw ruefully. "Sorry I didn't get a chance to visit sooner," he said, sheepishly. 

"What are you doing here?" Robin asked, but even as the words slid out he had a good guess.

Kiba grinned like he was reading Robin's mind. 

Robin glared.

*****

He didn't tell Batman about it, for a few reasons.

 One, Kiba wasn't going to do anything to the left or to the right of the line the Batman had in the sand of the city. Except possibly give Robin a very big headache. But lots of people gave Robin head aches, and at least Kiba wasn't using a lead pipe. 

Two, telling Batman about it would require the sentence 'Kiba wanted to bed me' in it. And that would lean to explaining that sentence. And. Really. No. Just. No. It wasn't like...

Just. No.

Third, it was mildly flattering and Batman would pick up on that and maybe that tied into point two..

Fourth, Kiba had come to see him. Not Batman. It was therefore, not Batman's business. Sorta. Well, everything in Gotham was Batman's business, but this wasn't,  _ urgent  _ business.

Fifth, it didn't occur to him to exactly call the man up and give him an update while Kiba was all but producing essays and photos on why they should have sex.

"What if I just say no?" Robin asked. 

Kiba grinned. Beamed, really. "I don't think you'll just say no. You haven't yet, after all. You sorta try to talk me out of it, but I think it's more you trying to talk yourself out of it, see? Cause you can't think of a really good reason why you shouldn't sleep with me."

"I can too!"

"And it is?"

"I... I don't really want too!"

Kiba pouted a little. "Are you sure? I'm very good in bed, you know. And I'm in good shape. I promise I don't make funny noises when I come. Well, maybe funny but not like, weird or off putting." 

Robin felt his cheeks and face get so hot he thought the spirit gum that helped hold the mask in place was going to fall off. Burn off.

"But, since I'm here to train you," Kiba said, and then Robin brain kicked back in with a sharp, "What?"

Kiba smiled. "I'm here to train you We agreed to give you enough training to let you reach whatever potential you had, and we're damn well going to do it. Well. I am. On behalf of the village." 

Robin blinked. "... If I sleep with you would you just go away?"

Kiba smiled. "You want to do it and find out?"

"I want an answer to my question!"

"If you slept with me you'd totally get an answer," Kiba said. 

Robin noted, uncomfortably, how damn close the man was. "You wouldn't go anywhere. Not until you'd trained me." He winced because telling that phrase to such a genuine dog person had some subtext that he was going to stop thinking about NOW.

Or NOW.

God dammit.

"That's true," Kiba said, humming. "I'd stay at least that long, welcomed or not."

And then, while Robin was still in a sort of stupor, Kiba leaned in and kissed his cheek.

It was a weirdly chaste kiss, considering the blatent nature of the man.

Robin tried to punch him for it. But Kiba dodged that blow easily. "Why did you let me hit you last time then?"

"Because it took me too long to catchup with you again. And I didn't say goodby last time. I owed you a hit. See?" Kiba smiled. "When do you want to meet to start training?"

 "You don't want to start now?"

"I thought you'd be more interested in the car thieves," Kiba said, face earnest. "That were trying to take one of the Ferrari's from the showroom down on eight."

 Robin's teeth gritted and he left the ledge in a hurry. 

**********

The next day at six pm,  just as Robin was deciding he probably, really should, inform Batman of the encounter (in a way that was more like 'I saw Kiba' not 'Kiba came to see me'), Kiba showed up.

With coffee.

"Here. One's got lots of cream and sugar, and one doesn't. I figured we could mix them until you liked one?"

Robin stared. 

"I also have cookies."

Robin took a cookie and the coffee that was plain. 

"And a calender. When do you want to train?" 

He did have a calender at hand. It was black leather, plain and filled with little notes and appointments until Kiba found today's date. It was blank after that point. Except for a note that said 'pay rent' and another for grooming that seemed to take up all of Saturday. 

Robin caught all that in a glance. And stared at Kiba, who had a pen now and was waiting.

"Thursday..." He said finally. "At. Four pm." 

Kiba wrote it down. "It's definite," he said. "I will see you then."

And then he was gone in a puff of slightly tangy smoke. 

Robin glared at the smoke. A time but no location?

He didn't like that.

.... he still didn't tell Batman.

But after the car thieves were dealt with, he took out his phone. Dialed a number.

Got voice mail.

Tim glared at the phone. Grayson was a BASTARD.

_ I really need more friends I can talk too, _  he thought, sulkily. 

******

But there wasn't anyone, really. Who did you talk to about that sort of thing?

Tim didn't know. Other than Grayson...

He stared at the phone. Maybe Barbara?

... She'd laugh a lot. But, Grayson had already done that, right?

... But then she'd ask questions.

Tim didn't like questions he didn't know the answers too, but in this case, since he presumably knew the answers on some level....

At four pm that Thursday, he still didn't have an answer.

But Kiba wasn't asking questions. He seemed more content to try to work Robin to DEATH with a thick journal outlining a training regime. 

"I thought you were gonna take the oppertunity to grope me," Tim said, rubbing his ass as he stood up.

"Oh, I still want to bed you, no doubt. But, Training is important, especially here. I want you to learn and develop so that you live long enough to realize how good it'd be for you."

Tim glared. 

*************

 

"It's not," G.J. Doe said, patiently, "As if we are forcibly recruiting."

Superman would have said something but the thin woman holding her child on one hip said something sharply. 

"She says unless you are going to feed her and give her daughter a safe education, she'd like to talk to me," the short, green eyed man said seriously. 

Superman sighed. "Your people said we'd be kept in the loop?"

"It's not a very complicated loop here," GJ Doe said. "We've established a safe zone, and a base here. We've dug our own diamond mine and the workers are paid in a percentage of the profits. You can check, be sure we're not gouging them. And when children under three are brought in, we take them in to train. Their parents are hired in the mines or for other jobs." He shrugged. "It's easy."

"Food?"

"We have ways of talking the plants into providing amply. And insects are high in protein."

"Miner safety?"

"They're pit mines...." Was the bland reply. "And I don't let them cave in."

"You don't, let them?" Superman said dubiously, then was suddenly aware that sand had gripped his feet. Tightly. "Ah. I see."

"I never sleep either," GJ Doe said, with a smile. 

_ Maybe, _  Superman thought as he flew away,  _ It's not just their goal that makes us uneasy, but the fact they seem to be reaching it in their little planned increments. _

 

**********

"Dick! Why the hell haven't you been answering your phone?"

Dick Grayson blinked. "You weren't using the emergency number?" He hazarded, looking up at the half shadow on the fire escape. 

"Oh. Well. Okay. it wasn't a technical emergency," Robin said, grudgingly.

Dick nodded. Stuck his hands in his pockets. It wadded up the jacket on the suit a little. He didn't care. 

"Why are you even in Gotham?"

"Well, you know why you're here?" Dick hazarded.

"This gallery opening's being attended by the artist, and the artist is one of the fallen."

"Yeah, I think you've  met Itachi?" Dick smiled. "And his caretaker? Kisame?"

"Yeah, I've met them. Kisame didn't have hair last time I saw him but that was six months ago..."

"Remember how Kiba basically walked up to you and declared his intent to woo you?" Dick  looked at the ground and his too shiny shoes. "I'm sorry I laughed so hard at you."

Robin's jaw, to his credit, went right back up after it dropped. "... Kisame?"

"Yeaaah. Um, if you think sleeping with Kiba'll make him loose interest? It won't," Dick said, thinking, to himself,  _ it really, really won't. You just end up with hickeys and someone who flips a coin with you to decide who get's to burn the toast today.  _ "At least Kiba's not anyone's caretaker?"

"He's got twelve wolves."

"Really?"

"They're the size of.. Of... They're about four feet at the shoulder. Great Dane Wolves. And Akumaru's the size of a horse. A BIG horse."

"Where does he keep them where they don't piss of the Bat?"

"I don't know!" Robin hissed. "He won't SAY. Batman doesn't know he's HERE! And he's been here a month!"

Dick realized he was staring in disbelief. "And he doesn't know?"

"I don't think so," Robin said, then his eyes narrowed. "Does he know about you?"

"Greatest Detective in the world, but you know how sometimes if he wants to believe something?" Dick gave a rueful smile. "I don't give him anything he can't ignore, it's not like he ever comes by for social calls."

Robin nodded sullenly.

"If you wanna get changed I can let you in the front door in, say, half an hour?" Dick offered. 

"Kiba's gonna find me in half an hour. More training."

"If you're in here he'll dress up nice to get you, right?"

Robin nodded. "Is that some sort of courtship rule of theirs?"

"I think it might be. But they've got another one called 'don't piss off anyone who can kick your ass' which is why they're all nice to the League, and I think Kisame's pretty high up on the power scale," Dick offered. Then laughed at the minute flicker of expression on what showed of Tim's face. "What, you think your boyfriend could take him?"

"I might be able too," came a voice from somewhere behind Robin. Since Robin almost launched off the metal platform, Dick knew Kiba'd snuck up on him. "With a running start and about fifty more dogs."

"Itachi's there too," Dick pointed out.

"Pfft. Fuck that then," Kiba said. He grinned at Robin. "Hey, you're gripping the wall properly. Good job."

Dick blinked, and realized that while one of Robin's gloved hands was gripping the railing, the other was flat on the wall and both seemed to be supporting his weight. Well, some of it. Dick whistled. "Not bad."

"We're hoping for all the basic channeling skill," Kiba said, pleased. "Casting'll probably stay beyond him but grip and the ability to add juice to his muscles, speed his reflexes? Maybe in a year or three." 

"But he's doing it without thinking about it," Dick said, as Robin's hand slipped, and the young man shifted to hold on in a more conventional manner. 

"Yes, well, eventually he'll trust it enough not to START thinking about it," Kiba said. "Robiin, do you want me to bring you clothes? So you can hang out with your teammate?"

Dick recognized that expression. He'd had it on his face before, and it didn't surprise him when Robin sighed, and nodded. 

"Half an hour," Dick repeated, going back inside.

"Stray dogs?" Said a low, rough voice that nevertheless managed to be gentle and mild. 

"Wolves," Dick corrected. 

"Mmm. I heard about that. Email. Very unusual. His clan's rather famous for one dog, one owner," Kisame said thoughtfully, handing Dick back his glass of wine. 

Dick took it. He'd been working on the same one all night, and was now at the switch-with-Kisame  stage so that he looked like he was drinking normally and socially, and not drinking rather a lot of water from a flask. Kisame called it being a closet teetollar. "And now he has a pack? Does that mean he's gaining power here?"

"It means he's willing to take risks here," Kisame said. "It usually damn near kills them if you off their dog, but the one he has is a puppy, that big one. It's not his first dog, that's what Itachi said. So maybe he's adapting."

Dick slide Kisame a look and thought about the definition of adapting. With the hair back the scars looked almost like a stylistic choice, rather than an accident. It was the swirling ones that did it. He was wearing a suit, a nice one, no tie because he idea of a noose annoyed him and he hated clipons. But it was still a suit dark charcoal, with that sheen really good silk had. Deep red shirt underneath.

He looked really good, Dick consoled himself a bit. Staggeringly good, really. Much better than that little punk Kiba. And this was the sort of high art crowd that knew how to politely comment on a pile of shit with beads on it labeled 'Virgin Mary', so a large blue man didn't mean a damn thing.

Itachi, on the other hand... Was wearing a dress. Dick had fallen over laughing and Kisame had just looked pained, but the Jessica-Rabbit like blue sequined 'frock' that the man had somehow obtained.... was absolutely. There was blue pearled high heels. Stilettos. Long white gloves. His hair was still short, like it refused to grow after the trauma of freezing off, but it was fluffy. The result was quiet terrifying, particularly when he brandished the four foot paintbrush and explained his installation. Which was taking gallon and gallons of thick black molten bee's wax and layering it onto the hide's he'd nailed up earlier.

It was the way the wax got on absolutely everything but the living creatures in the room that seemed to really impress everyone. 

Really, Dick thought, most of Itachi's painting's were in richly textured black. He'd stick anything onto the canvas, gravel, freshwater pearls, ceder splinters. Kisame said that Itachi could feel the lead in white paint and the... Something in that particular red pigment. So some of the paintings had ornate red and white patterns. But mostly he worked in black.

Itachi was currently the art worlds darling. Exotic, insane, and a master of the sort of bullshit language that could justify just about anything.

_ He'd be wrapping buildings next, _  Dick thought, ruefully, then blinking as a large arm went around his waist a moment. Half an embrace with lips pressed to his temple. "Bad habit," he said, automatically. 

"Yep," Kisame agreed with a smile. Amazing how fast you got used to the teeth. 

They stood, comfortably, swapping glasses once, until Kisame's posture shifted enough to let Dick know that someone (probably Kiba) had shown up. He always straighted up a little when one of the Fallen swung by. He did it for anyone with superpowers, too. Kinda like an early warning system.

Dick smiled and waved a hand at Tim, who slide over and took a position that wasn't quite hiding behind Dick.

"It's, interesting," Tim managed, looking around at the huge canvases. Itachi didn't do medium. His art was either huge or tiny. 

Kisame shifted, gave Tim a polite nod. "Drake. Grayson. I have to go stop him from painting that prick from the Union Tribune."

Dick watched Kisame go, then turned to glance at Tim, who was starting blankly after the man. "If you tell I'll rat you out," Dick said, cheerfully.

"How are you not already news? Isn't he in a band now?"

"We don't usually go out together," Dick said. "But it's a strict no-photo thing for Itachi's openings, and Itachi's... Well. Me being at an art opening isn't really news and Itachi's the best distraction you could ask for. No one looks at anything but him." 

"Ah," TIm said. 

"Anyway, Kiba's here," Dick added.

Tim turned. Judging by Tim's face, Dick decided that Kiba didn't wear suits often. 

This was a nice suit too, but it had that slightly rumpled look to it, like the owner had worn it through a quick roll in, if not the hay, then certainly the Mercedes. His hair was combed back, even, gel had been used.

Dick mourned gel, for a moment. His  _ always  _ vanished, because Kisame stole it and threw it away.

But the image of Kiba in a suit wasn't the amusing part, as slightly out of place as he looked in it. It was the look on Tim's face.

Apparently, Tim might have had a thing for suits that he was previously unaware of. Dick grinned. Most people were, right up until they saw the right person in the right suit. It was something about straight lines and buttons.

Oh, the bright red clan marks were still on his cheeks, and when the guy smiled his teeth were still a little edged.  And Kisame was blue with razor teeth and no whites in his eyes. It was just wrapping them in a layer of civilization. 

"Dick," Kiba said, with a slight, nodded bow. 

"Kiba," Dick just held out his hand, and Kiba took it.  _ Shake boy! _  Dick thought, but he didn't say it. Out of respect for Tim, not cause he thought Kiba'd do anything.

Big blue was kinda like a bullet proof vest as far as the fallen were concerned. And Dick hadn't started OUT as someone who watched what they said.

He politely wandered away so Tim could  ~~ suffer in awkward sile ~~  talk with Kiba.


	13. Chapter 13

 

"This is a date," Kiba said, as Dick walked away. Tim wondered what it'd taken for Kiba not to call Dick Mr. Wang.

"Is not," Tim replied.

Kiba grinned, offered a glass of wine that Tim declined, shrugged. "Yes, it is. We're enjoying each others company and looking at pictures. It's like going to the movies but without a plot."

There was high, strange laughter from the other room, and a rush of heated air. Tim tensed but Kiba tapped his shoulder. "Okay, so maybe a little bit of a plot," Kiba offered. "That was just a small fireball. No one's hurt." 

 

"Still not a date."

 

"What makes a date?"

 

Tim was ready for this one, though. "Both parties agreeing to call it a date."

 

"What would it take to make you call it a date?"

 

Tim didn't answer. Just stared at a painting that looked like there were bones in it. He looked closer. There were. Well, the shape of bones, at least, trapped in the... Whatever the hell this was painted in. 

 

"Tim?"

 

Tim turned his head. He really... "How long have they been together?"

 

"Wang and Blue?"

 

Tim blinked. Then rolled his eyes and nodded.

 

"What do you count from?" Kiba said, thoughtfully. "They can't have been together more than eight months because blue was still black and crispy nine months ago...." 

 

"I... Guess that..." Tim thought. "When would Dick count it from?"

 

"I don't know. You know him better than I do."

 

Tim sighed. Thought about it. Dick probably barely counted it now. He was very. Thick like that. "Fine. When does Kisame count from?"

 

Kiba shrugged. 'Kisame'd say... First meeting, I think? It was very much first sniff, he said."

 

"You talk to him?"

 

"Email. Text. I actually like his band, so I'm on their mailing list thing," Kiba said with a nod. "We all keep in touch, sorta." 

 

Tim mentally sighed. Of course. Why wouldn't they all adapt to email? Kiba had an iphone now, he'd gotten it a month ago and had figured out pictures at the exact same moment that Tim hand managed to dangle about twenty feet off the ground by just his fingertips.

 

He'd refused to take it off the phones wallpaper, too. 

 

"And you talk about me, of course?"

 

"Well, yeah. Not a lot. Some of it's just, advice on how to train you, things like that. Most of what I tell the other villager's is stuff like that. Your progress. They're all impressed, really. I mean, like I told you,"

 

"Yeah, yeah, over three and what's the point...."

 

"Yeah, but because of you they'll take anyone under six now. They think if you'd been trained from birth you'd be genius level. That's something," Kiba said. "And we all like to talk to Kisame cause he's willing to give us updates on Itachi."

 

"Is he really a ticking time bomb?"

 

"He's, ticking," Kiba said, making the trans universal sign for 'coo coo'. 

 

Tim nodded. He knew a lot of people like that. They knew him too, in a way. Well. They knew Batman and Robin. The lucky one's just knew Robin. 

 

"But Kisame's got the key's, and he keeps him nice and tuned properly. To abuse a metaphor," Kiba said.

 

Tim looked at Kiba. At the suit. "What are you gonna do after your done training me?"

 

"Training you'll take years," Kiba said, with relish. "The better you get, the more you'll be able to learn."

 

"Ah. But. After."

 

"Hopefully by then we'll have moved in together. I'll hang out and train dogs when I'm not doing village stuff."

 

Tim stared. 

 

"You're rich and I can get money. We could have a nice place. Would need a big one cause of the dogs but-"

 

"You're serious?" Tim squawked. 

 

Kiba nodded. 

 

"And what if I tell you to fuck off?" he hissed, ducking behind something twisted and molten looking, polished in bits.

 

"You haven't yet."

 

"Well, you're training me."

 

"You've never asked for anyone else."

 

"That was an option?" Tim said. "I assumed that you were sent here as a punishment."

 

"For what?"

 

"For screwing up your villages.... Plan..." Tim Glowered. "That was planned?"

 

"Well, it was premature... But it was loosley planned, yeah," Kiba shrugged, smiled weakly. "We adapt very quickly to a changing plan, you know?"

 

"I keep thinking I know. Then you remind me," Tim said.  Then, to reiterate. "This isn't a date."

 

"Only because you say so."

 

"A..." Tim paused, grimaced mentally and went on. "A movie and dinner Friday night. That's a date. Around seven. Or so." he glowered at Kiba. "And one WORD out of you until then and I will ask for a different teacher."

 

He didn't think his glower had done much to Kiba. The jerk's beaming face could have repelled a level ten bat glower and Tim had only even gotten to level three. 

 

Kiba's mouth started to open. Then shut. Then he bounced on his toes a minute. Then he'd pressed a kiss to Tim's cheek, flailed in place, and took off out the back down. Tim could hear cheering outside. And a howling that had to be Akumaru.

 

And then more howls that faded into the night.

 

Tim ate a canape and wondered why he'd done that. For about two seconds. 

 

Bat's are not fond of introspection. 

 

********

 

It was a movie. That was all Tim remembered about it. The food had been good, he knew that, because he'd been starving. But after having spent the previous night, generally, being Robin...

 

And it wasn't like he could  _ cancel  _ on Kiba. 

 

He yawned. He head was rolled back, his cheek was on something soft and warm. He'd fallen asleep sitting up, he realized. 

 

With Kiba's arm around him in the theater. The house lights coming back on had been what had woken him up. 

 

Tim's throat was dry. He took a sip of watery sprite (melted ice) and swallowed.  Looked down. "I fell asleep?"

 

Kiba nodded. Took the cup back. "I told you that we should just skip the movie and sleep."

 

"You meant together, thought, right?"

 

"Yes, but as tired as you are, I didn't actually mean sex. I was going to order a movie on my phone, and make you watch it with me in the morning. Very romantic."

 

Tim laughed, hollowly. "Because if I say a date is dinner and a movie, and you get a date, then you get dinner and a movie?"

 

Kiba nodded.

 

Tim rubbed his face with both hands. Groaned. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean too do this to you..."

 

"Snuggle trustingly for over an hour?"

 

Tim glared through his fingers. "Is it not possible for me to piss you off?"

 

"It's possible. You just aren't very good at it."

 

Tim took a deep breath in, then out, then froze. Kiba had kissed his ear. There was a long, waiting sort of moment, followed by another kiss. "Does it count as a movie if you sleep through it?" Kiba asked him, question going right in his ear. 

 

Tim mentally swallowed. "Yes."

 

"So it was a date?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Can we have another one?"

 

"Now?"

 

Kiba laughed. "No. Maybe, next Tuesday?"

 

"Maybe."

 

"Is this date over then?"

 

"I don't know the social rules for two boys. Generally it's over when one person takes the other one home," and oh, he could feel the leer. "Not like that." 

 

"So you want me to take you home then?"

 

"You're angling for a kiss, right?"

 

Kiba nodded. 

 

Tim took a breath, mentally braced, turned his head and gave Kiba the start of an awkward kiss.

 

It would have ended as an awkward kiss too, except Kiba's arm tightened, and his other hand came up to catch Tim's jaw. Kiba knew how to kiss properly, and took over.

 

Tim had to make himself  _ let _  Kiba take over. It was a control thing. A bat thing, really. And in all likely hood, Tim admitted, a  _ Tim  _ thing.

 

Letting Kiba kiss him like this though.. Tim made a mental note to allow it more often as Kiba shifted to nuzzle him nose to nose.

 

"We can go home now," Tim said, kissing his cheek. Leaning his head into Kiba's shoulder a moment, then standing up. "Okay?"

 

Kiba nodded. He looked like he was avoiding speech in the event that it would scare Tim off. 

 

"I've already decided what I'm going to do when we get there," Tim said. "So you can talk. You'd have to be pretty impressive to get me to change my mind."

 

"I managed it once," Kiba said, smiling.

 

"It's not gonna take eight months to get back to your place."

 

"My place?"

 

Tim nodded.

 

If Kiba had a tail, Tim reflected, it would have been wagging. He got up, gathered the soda's and the empty popcorn while Tim stretched up and felt his spine crackle. 

  
  


"Could you be more eager?" Tim asked, amused and feeling slghlty less drowsey.

 

"Yes," Kiba said with a quick nod. "I could be MUCh more eager. I could be carrying you down to my truck and singing."

 

"Please don't," Tim said, grimacing. He'd seen Kiba's truck. It was a beast, lifted, with shocks, and a camper on it because he usually brought one or ten dogs round at all times. Tonight it was just Akumaru curled in the bed, but still.

 

Tim realized, as he clamored into the thing,  that he'd never been in it even though he had seen it. He wans't even that sure where Kiba lived.

 

It made him feel mildly guilty, rather than exposed. Yeah, Kiba knew wher he lived. But Tim had told him to save time.

 

"It's about an hour drive, this time of night," Kiba said, looking over. "I'm way on the outskirts, see? so the dogs can run. Place used to be a polo pony thing. So there are stables."

 

Tim nodded. He thought he might know the place. "Did the main house burn down a few years ago?"

 

"Yep."

 

He remembered that place, certainly. They'd been breeding. Things. He'd knocked over the candles.

 

Tim supposed that he'd also driven the price of the place down. Well,  that was okay, it wasn't a deliberate thing. He shifted on the wide flat bench seat, leaned against the door and put his feet up because it was comfortable. The cab smelled like dog. Not wet, just dog. Musky. Kiba smelled, the same, but spicier. 

 

Tim wondered when he'd made a mental note of Kiba's smell. Probably right around his real last chance to get the man out of his life. He poked the radio, and came on.

 

It wasn't a station he recognized. He frowned. It didn't look like satellite? 

 

"It's one of the three village stations," Kiba said, catching Tim's eye as he pulled out of the parking space. "Music, updates, occasional gossip. Nothing classified, obviously we don't really encode. This one's kinda, pop and dance stuff. There's a harder rock and techno one cause our one guy likes to remix, and the third station goes between country and classical every few days." 

 

Tim nodded, filed this. An hour to get there? He looked at the clock. It was wrong, had to be, maybe Kiba was one of those people that didn't bother with daylight savings. But the minutes.. He still had sixty of them, right? Until they got to Kiba's? "What the hell made you so stubborn?"

 

"Huh?" Kiba was just a shadow in the dark now, occasionally illuminated by the street lights. Tim did not look at his profile, and did not consider what he'd more or agreeded too just by climbing in the car.

 

"When you decided you wanted to bed me, or, however you said it," Tim said as if he didn't remember the words.

 

"When you looked like you wanted to say yes, but said no."

 

"I did not."

 

"Yeah, you did. Akumaru agreed. Right Akumaru?"

 

A short rough bark that Tim had to admit held the tones of agreement. He scowled.

 

Akumaru laughed. It was an erriely human laugh. 

 

"Is she really learning to talk?"

 

Kiba chuckled. "Speak girl!"

 

"She shells seashells by the seashore," said the dog. It was laborious, but clear. Like a stroke victim speaking. That slow careful infliction. 

 

Tim stared. "They can learn to do that?"

 

"My dogs can. Well. Akumaru can. The wolves won't learn it unless I bond with them really closely and to connect with that many... It'd be like growing twelve extra arms. And than having to learn to type with all of them."

 

"So Akumaru's like an extra arm?" Tim asked, looking at the muzzle snuffing against the glass. 

 

"Yeah."

 

"How hard was she to get used too?"

 

"Easier than getting used to the lack," Kiba said. Tim thought that there had been a sort of finality to that statement, but Kiba kept talking. "I was, bonded to a puppy at one year. Akamaru. Red dog. They did it in a way that, meant he'd grow as I grew. Stayed a puppy a long time, stuff like that. Made him smarter. I mean, he was from a really good bloodline but..."

 

On the freeway now. Silence for a moment as he slid into the carpool lane. It was late, so they didn't need three. 

 

"When... When I fell through, Akamaru fell through with me. And he didn't make it."

 

Tim blinked. He wasn't sure how you reacted to that. "So you, needed a new arm?"

 

"Yeah. Pretty much."

 

"But the wolves won't.. If one of them died it'd... be what? Like loosing a toe?"

 

"Or getting kicked in the balls. I don't know for certain. It'll suck if it happens though," Kiba sounded like he was smiling, somewhat weakly. Ass.

 

Tim reached out, hesitated, and put a hand on Kiba's shoulder. "Why'd you name Akumaru so closely?"

 

"Cause she's evil. Evil dog. Pee'd on me a LOT as a puppy. That's, most of it. One little letter, two different dogs, see? The little things that kill. I was feeling very poetic that day..."

 

"Ahkay," Tim managed. He went back to slumping against the door. 

 

"You look very tired."

 

"Long night."

 

"And you trained yesterday."

 

"Yeah," with Batman. "But I still want to go home with you."

 

"Mm. Do you really trust me enough to sleep?"

 

"Yeah. Is that strange?"

 

Kiba hummed half under his breath, in tune with the low music. "It's a little strange? I trust you enough to sleep near you, with you. Because you're a good person, you know? I know your moral code wouldn't let you hurt me. Especially not in my sleep."

 

"And I shouldn't trust you because you're a bad boy?"

 

"Oh, but in such good ways!"

 

"You keep bragging."

 

"Well, I'm fabulous."

 

Tim sighed. The conversation had lost him again. "You say that, but you're not screwing any of the other villagers. Aren't they 'fabulous' too?" The inverted comma's clanged down.

 

"Nope."

 

"Have you checked?"

 

"One or two, one or two, but..." Kiba sighed. "I like you, alright? I don't want to be like... Some of the others, staying like with like. I wanna be out HERE helping them in little ways."

 

"So you want me cause I'm an outsider?"

 

"No. Cause you're hot when you concentrate."

 

Tim gave up. Well, he'd already given up. "Do you all do this? Pick a person and focus?"

 

"Well, no. You mean like Kisame? Kisame's a genetically engineered freak, Itachi's just a regular inbred freak, and I have no idea what Kisame's social customs were where he grew up. But Nami's dating regularly, Rei's dating online cause he doesn't trust people he can touch, and..." Kiba stopped. "Hey, how often do you superheroes date each other?"

 

"I don't," Tim started, then considered. "You're gonna say shared experiences, aren't you?"

 

"Yeah. Sorta. I know what you are, you know what I am. We can be honest. That's a good start." 

 

Tim shut his eyes. "Yeah, okay."

 

Akumaru whined and then they were off the freeway, driving for another ten minutes until they got too....

 

The burnt out house was gone, but there was still just a charred foundation there. The guest house has something built onto the side, and a covered walkway to the stables. Very high hedges all around. Unnaturally so, really. Tim wondered if they were real. 

 

The doors weren't locked. Tim would have commented but the massive dog behind him, pushing past him with her tail wagging, reminded him that Kiba didn't really need to worry about petty theft. It was still strange to see an unlocked door in Gotham county.

 

Tim supposed he's been expecting... Dogs everywhere. But they weren't.  Oh, AKumaru was curling up by the couch, chewing on a massive knot of rawhide that must have been more than one cow, but the place was clean and, when Kiba threw a switch, well lit.

 

There was a big desk, a big couch, a large tv. There was a kitchen. The kitchen had an extra steel door, like a walk in frezer and...

 

"Wanna help me feed the wolves?" Kiba asked. The freezer did have a lock on it, he was spinning the numbers.

 

Tim nodded. "Should I hang my jacket up?" 

 

"Naw. They eat outside, stay outside most of the time. Wolves are still wolves, you know? They'd eat the furniture," Kiba said. 

 

The door swung open.

 

Inside the freezer, it was filled with meat. Meat, meat, more meat.... A few carton's of milk, some ice cream, a fire ax by the door per saftey regulations, and a little red wagon that Kiba was stacking frozen chickens onto. 

 

"Can I help?" 

 

"You can pull the wagon in a minute," Kiba said, calmly. Nothing was wrapped in plastic, it all hung on hooks. Lot's of hooks. Kiba's take down a bird, toss it hand to hand to gauge weight, and set it on the wagon. 

 

"You don't let em thaw?"

 

"Good for their jaws, to chew a little," Kiba said. "If I let them pick they go for the harder ones."

 

TIm nodded, and pulled the wagon when he was told.

 

Watching the wolves get fed was slightly odd. 

 

They came. They sat for Kiba. They lay down. They stood up for him, they behaved very well....

 

And then he'd toss out a chicken and the wolf that you'd almost decided was a large dog was just one huge gaping maw and there was a crunch and then it was sitting again, tail wagging.

 

"I didn't feed them much this morning," Kiba said. "Though I might be running with them tonight."

 

"If I shot you down?"

 

"If you gave me a goodnight kiss then went home."

 

"Ah."

 

"Exactly." Kiba was washing his hands with the hose spigot now, and rinsing out the wagon. 

 

Tim stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and watched. His stomach was starting to do weird things again, like it'd just remembered that it was supposed to be butterfly filled but could only manage goldfish. His brain wasn't helping by bringing up the matter of his limited experience. Well. Vast if you counted theoretical but sex was closer to, say gymnastics than chemistry. You couldn't just study how a cartwheel was supposed to go then go do one.

 

According to that theory, Tim was about to fall on his face. He tried to think of a different theory. 

 

The walk back to the house was quiet while the wolves and Akumaru sat about and ate. Kiba's hand found Tim's shoulder, then back. The wagon was put away. 

 

Tim didn't quite laugh when Kiba took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

  
  


*****

 

Kisame didn't sleep much. That was fine, neither did Dick, and Itachi slept for ten hours at a go, so it left them a lot of overlapping time where they were both awake. And on a good week, they'd get little chunks of time like this, when they were both up, and Itachi was asleep, and the city was a tiny bit quiet. 

 

The show'd been a good one, too. And while Grayson hadn't seen it, it was still a nice fact.

 

Not as nice as sitting on the fire escape with a lap full of superhero, making out like stupid teenagers. Mask on, even.

 

"The hell was that noise?" Nightwing asked, pulling away. 

 

"They usually call those moans and," Kisame said cheerfully.

 

"No, it was in your jacket," Nightwing grumbled, rummaging. He'd had his hands in there anyway, gloves off. "Ah, your phone."

 

"You can leave it," Kisame offered. "It wasn't any sort of emergency call those have a different ringtone." 

 

"But it's almost two am, who'd call?"

 

Kisame leaned in and licked Grayson's ear. "Jealous?"

 

"Should I be?" Nightwing flipped open the phone. "It's a text from... Doi cho?"

 

"It's a sort of dog-meat sausage. It's Kiba. Go ahead and open it. What's he want?"

 

"... I can't read this. It's text gibberish."

 

Kisame took the phone.  _ w@ do i do  _ [ _ f _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=45577) _  he  _ [ _ falz _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=83115) __ [ _ |-I _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=17858) _  on  _ [ _ d _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=14308) _  bed  _ [ _ aftr _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=39224) [ _ getN _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=88697) __ [ _ hs _ ](http://www.lingo2word.com/lingodetail.php?WrdID=94546) _  shirt off? _  Kisame scanned it twice. Then snickered. "Apparently his date fell asleep on him."

 

Nightwing blinked, then buried his face into Kisame's shoulder to laugh a moment. "Oh, poor Tim."

 

"You heard about the date too, huh?"

 

"Yeah, of course."

 

Kisame sent something back as a response, and tucked his phone away again. Sighed when Nightwing pulled his gloves back on and leaned in for a goodbye kiss. "Gonna leave me to pack up the amps by my lonesome?"

 

Nightwings response took a moment because someone else's tongue was in his mouth. Made talking tricky and when he had use of it back, he was a little out of breath, with reddened lips. "Yeah, I am."

 

"Mmkay. See you later," a statement, not a question. Another quick kiss then Nightwing was gone, though his scent hung heavy on the coat.

 

Kisame took a deep breath in. Smiled. And went back into the club to gather up his things, get everyone in the band into the van, get 'em all home.

 

*************

 

Kiba sighed when Tim shifted a little and sunk back to sleep. He'd half expected that but still. Damn. So he took a deep breath and let it go and curled close to the worn out man. If he wasn't asleep enough to ignore the erection, then he wasn't asleep enough to not be having sex.

 

Kiba dreamed of running with his wolves, one hand on Akumaru's shoulder. Dreamed about the howl. Then woke up at dawn. Sighed. Nuzzled Tim's neck.

 

Mm. TIm smelled good. Some sort of odor neutral soap, probably, but there was a hint of after shave or cologne or something. Not a lot. He put his nose into the hollow behind Tim's ear and hummed as TIm started to wake up groggily. 

 

Heeee. Groggy was a nice look on him. Kiba kissed his cheek.

 

Tim blinked owlishly a moment. "Did we?"

 

"We started. We didn't finish, because someone fell asleep."

 

Tim colored red slowly. "Oh."

 

"We got ME all hot and bothered too," Kiba said, with a smirk. 

 

"I'm sorry?" Tim tried. "Errm. Really?"

 

"Yeah, really," Kiba said. "It was cute. In a frustrating sort of way."

 

Tim swallowed. Then sat up. "I need to pee."

 

"It's right over there," Kiba pointed. "Mouthwash is under the sink."

 

Tim nodded. Got up. There were various water noises, then he simply came back to the bed and flopped into it.

 

Kiba got up and did more or less the same thing, with one difference.  When he came back drying his hands on his pants, his legs weren't in them anymore. He was very naked when he hit the sheets.

 

Kiba grinned and went back to nuzzling Tim's ear.

 

There was silence, then, "You don't have pants, do you..." A statement. Flat.

 

"Nope. Should I?"

 

Tim exhaled. "I suppose not." Kiba tried a lick, and Tim shivered. "Morning sex?"

 

"Morning making out and maybe sex," Kiba corrected. Tim turned his head enough to take a kiss, and Kiba smiled. 

 

"Such a romantic," Tim said. 

 

"I'm really not," Kiba said. "But I could try. D'ya want flowers?" Kiba kissed neck next. Ear. Chuckled. "You're over dressed."

 

"So fix it."

 

"That a challenge?" 

 

Tim was blushing again. 

 

_ ~O.o~  And now for something completely different. ~o.O~ _

 

The thing about Bat's is that they're usually doomed, relationship wise.

 

Excessive logical thought keeps them from starting sane ones, and they usually exists in a sort of emotional limbo until the pressure builds up, they snap, and jump the nearest available person who's put up with the bullshit so far.

 

Kiba and Kisame had had quite a few conversations about this, in the last few months. Part of it was the dual identity, of course. People who fell for superheroes weren't always too interested in the person behind the mask, and people who fell for normal people generally weren't able to adapt to the idea that someone could willing dress like an idiot and risk their life in an act of dubious legality.

 

And it wasn't like there was a dating website available for them. 

 

Kiba'd thought about that, long and hard, for about ten minutes way back when he'd first met Tim and only had guesswork to go off of. He'd come to the conclusion that people were daff and set about grinding down Tim's resistance ever since. 

 

But it's important to note that the cumulation of his plan wasn't what he was doing now, which was helpfully removing TIm's pants while the young man blushed. It wasn't even something more frothy, like getting Tim to say 'I love you' or something sappy. Though, in a very dark corner of his head, Kiba would award himself exactly one BILLION bonus points if Tim came out to Batman. 

 

His plan was simply, not to be daff and screw up a good thing. Kiba came from a village that was to some extent famous for it's bloody mindedness about relationships. It was bred into them. 

 

_ <(<.<  )> I have been told this is kirby. _

 

Tim's plan was less far reaching. His plan was very short term, in fact. His plan was, right now, at this moment... Not to panic and kick Kiba. It'd be a stupid thing to do, for starters. Impolite. But because he was a bat, and because he wasn't at the jump-nearest-person in a rush of adreniline and hormones for yay-we're-alive sex stage, logic kept trying to kick in.

 

Logic was a pain in the ass to ignore. He'd tried to placate it last night with that talk in the car but now logic was trying to cry foul, that it had been sleepy, and what the hell did TIm think he was doing anyway?

 

For some reason 'enjoying himself' wasn't making logic shut up and go away.

 

He sat up enough to pull Kiba's face in for a kiss. That worked better as a distraction. Maybe overruling logic with libido'd have better success. Kiba was an excellent kisser, it seemed to work. And it kept Tim from looking at the fact they were both very naked. It wasn't that he was against the nudity, it just seemed to be making him stupid and...

 

Okay maybe he needed to be stupider for this. Tim broke the kiss, put his hand on Kiba's shoulders, and looked him over.

 

Well. He started with the nose. It was an acceptable nose. He gave it a kiss. Next was. Well. On some people it'd be lips, but on Kiba it was the deep red tattoos. Only on his face, they didn't, follow a pattern that went down, or mean anything other than which branch of his family he'd belongs too. Tim wondered if it's made war games easy to divide up.

 

Now lips. They were always smiling, that was the best thing about them. Sometimes there were chapped, sometimes they were glossy with balm because they'd been chapped yesterday, sometime they were pink, like now, but they were almost always smiling. Exposing teeth that were just sharp enough to look at twice.

 

Brown hair that had it's own agenda, tan skin. Tim made his eyes keep going down. Neck. Here was where the scars started. Thin lines, almost white. There was one that had an almost painted look, like he'd been decorated with acid. But most were straightforward. Cuts, scrapes. They tended to bruise rather than bleed, right?

 

Lean body, muscles like a rock climbers. Not quite wiry but not bulky either. 

 

Tim realized he was tracing scars with his fingertips, and that Kiba was being very still. He had to make himself keep going, and he certainly didn't glance up for eye contact. That was just  _ asking  _ to get shoved into the pillows.

 

... He'd look up in a moment. 

 

Nipples, two. Brown. Tim traced one, leaning in to kiss Kiba's collarbone  and hide his blush. Two for one move. See? Genius.  He spent extra time focused solely on nipples. Kiba was very sparse in the chest hair department, but they were there. Only visible because they were so damn dark. He thought about kissing one, but that'd require moving a lot and he was just trying to get stupid. 

 

_... oh good it's working. _ Tim thought, grinning.  _ Next is.. Abs. _

 

Well, that was easy, Kiba had very nice abs. They jumped a little under his touch, and Tim did it again. Smiled. 

 

"You start to tickle me," Kiba said, warning. 

 

"Are you ticklish?"

 

"Little feather touches like that, yeah!" Kiba's lips were on his ear now, brushing. "Making sure everything's there?"

 

Tim stuck his finger into Kiba's navel in a jab. "Yes. Shut up."

 

Kiba's hand slide up his back. Tim shivered and stopped prodding. Let his finger's slide and... More hair, darker. Amazing what the mind could block out when it tried. Oh, sure, his brain supplied adjectives, measurements, even! But it seemed to be losing picture.

 

Tim went with touch, again, and the adjectives changed from tone to texture. Words like soft, firm, and hot floated up. 

 

Kiba made a whiny noise. "It doesn't bite. I swear," he said, hips wriggling side to side a little. "You can use more than just your fingertips Tiiiimmm."

 

"Are you begging?" Tim said, looking up and feeling an unexpected rush at the idea.  _ Hello there subconscious... so good of you to chime in... _  He felt his cheeks heat up at both his treacherous brain and Kiba's expression and tried to duck his head back down, but that mean looking at-

 

Okay maybe he'd gone and made himself too stupid. 

 

"I was mostly just, being whiny but I could beg," Kiba offered, leering. "Tim, Tim pleeeease touch mee? Touch me theeerrreeeee," he mock pleaded, leaning his head to one side.

 

"Gyuh," Tim managed.

 

"OooOooh," Kiba continued. "Pleee-gyuh!"

 

Tim shoved him into the mattress. He DID grab a pillow, thinking maybe to hit the jerk, but Kiba was too fast and then they were kissing again. 

 

Sometimes pressure could be built up artificially.  Tim gripped at shoulders, first thought 'shove off' but his libido was taking things seriously now and instead he just gripped, pulled, and kissed back. Writhed, was probably a good word, squirming his hips until a current hit. Ah, there, if he rubbed himself THERE....

 

Kiba's hands were possessively on his ass and glory be, Tim was absolutely thrilled about that instead of mildly mortified. The little noises Kiba made? Also thrilling. 

 

There was proably more he could be doing, really, with hands, mouth, but kissing and motion was currently all consuming and Kiba wasn't doing more than arching back agianst him and holding him in place.

 

Tim could live with that. He really could. If there was just a bit more, ah, wait, but,

 

There was a problem. Not a huge one, if he could get his brain online he could just work out both the nature of the problem and the solution.

 

Well, okay, tha nature of the problem was that the warm-soft skin on Kiba's dick was catching on the warm soft skin of him own dick. And yes, it was a mental victory for him to use that term, so don't laugh.

 

That means you.

 

It was the solution to dry-dick friction that was currently evading him. He pulled away, looked down between them and tried to figure it out.

 

Sex, he though vaugly, was unfair. As soon as you got logic to shut up long enough to get hard and firsky about the whole affair, you found yourself needing it too work out certain angles as far as comfort went.

 

Truely, the fact people managed to make more people was a damn good trick.

 

"Too rough?"

 

"Uh?" Oh, Kiba was asking a question. Tim looked up and processed a little, flushed. "just a little,"

 

"They have a product for that, you know," Kiba said, stretching up and backwards. Alas, even the jelly spined villager under him couldn't reach quite that far and Tim had to move.

 

Kiba laughed, and Tim scowled.

 

"Oh, don't pout," kiba caught his face, kissed him and let go to squirm backwards before rummaging in a drawer.

 

Tim balenced his head on a hand, elbow in the sheets. For some reason it was hard to be anythign but amused by Kiba when he wriggled like that.  Maybe some sort of line had been crossed. He wondered if it was the same line that had been hung up on him using the word dick. Hee. Dickdickdickhardon.

 

Tim put his arms back around Kiba, it put his nose to a nice set of ribs. Smiled against them. "What are you getting? Lotion?"

 

"Yeah, pretty much."

 

"Not lube?"

 

"Gimme some credit, Tim, everyone knows you only stick it in on the first round with cheap hookers."

 

"... I didn't know that. Where is that rule written?"

 

"It's not. It's one of those everyone knows sorta rules," Kiba said, sitting up. Apparently he'd located. Whatever he was looking for.

 

Tim reached out and took it, eyed it. "Orange and bergamont?"

 

"It was on sale. It's nice lotion."

 

"Bergamont..."

 

"It's a sorta fruit, right?"

 

"Italian," Tim said, because that was the sort of useless information that Bat's had to know. "They put it in tea a lot." He put some on his fingers. Okay, so it was nice lotion. But something about the packaging....

 

"See? Classy," Kiba said.

 

"Fruity,' TIm started, but Kiba'd drawn close and was kissing his neck and nuzzling. Lipping at his ear. Tim went pleasantly rigid because he hadn't realized how many nerve endings were there. "Ahh, fruit's okay, though, I like fruit, and," 

 

"Fruity guys?"

 

"You. Shut up."

 

Kiba rolled his eyes and reached down with a handful of cold! Lotion!

 

Tim yelped but he didn't smack Kiba for it. Even if his face made it amply clear that smacking as an option had not yet been ruled out.

 

Then Kiba moved his hand and it stopped being cold and warmed up all the way to very nice indeed. 

 

Tim turned his head and tried to get a grip on Kiba's ear with his teeth. Kiba smiled, shifted his head to make it easier. Panted down his shoulder when Tim bit down, gingerly.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: At this point. I got bored.
> 
> No. Really. I just DID.
> 
> So we'll get to actual smut later.
> 
> I can recap though. Kiba gave Tim a very excellent handjob, and when Tim was about to reciprocate, Tim's phone when off and he had to get back to Gotham in a real hurry.
> 
> Kiba will probably never let him forget about that.
> 
> Ever.
> 
> Would you?


	14. Chapter 14

  
  


"Maybe," Kisame said, thoughtfully, watching Grayson roll around on the floor, giggling manically in that way he had when he was utterly exhausted but it was funny anyway, "Maybe I shouldn't let you read my text messages anymore. I'm sure Kiba's rant wasn't meant for you."

 

Grayson sprawled. He'd been half out of costume and it was only tremendous self control on Kisame's part that was saving his navel from a good licking. "But it's pretty damn funny, right?"

 

"Not for Kiba."

 

"I mean, I've had almost sex interrupted but once you're actually having it? Oh man, you better be able to hear the explosion," Grayson stretched out,  turning the sprawl into an arch.

 

"Maybe he's got a special ring tone?" Kisame suggested, but he'd really just stopped paying any real attention to the conversation. It was about sex, right? Yes. He shifted a little. Nooo, Grayson was tired, right? Long night. Blah blah blah. Nothing BIG but lot's of little running arounds.

 

"Mmph, I mean, how can you fight with blue balls anyway? That'd hurt!" Hands and heels on the ground now in a perfect half circle, kicking into hand stand.

 

Kisame's eyes slitted half shut. Grayson had five minutes to start acting tired or he was getting dragged into the shower. It was cruel to wake a man up with at nine am with cackles and then roll around sweaty and half naked otherwise.

 

"Okay, if you ever fought you'd be fighting with blue balls, but," Grayson leered at him a moment, sprung back to his feet and arched an eyebrow. "You feeling okay? You're usually on me by now."

 

Kisame blinked, then attempted a scowl and an accusing, pointed finger. "You said you were tired."

 

"I was. I am. Sex me anyway?" Grayson was half through an attempt to bat his eyelashes when he got tossed over Kisame's hip. He twisted like an eel and  got an arm around Kisame'd neck, somehow. "If I was too tired for that, I've have slept in my own bed."

 

Kisame didn't mention how that seemed to happen less and less, anymore, but only because it was early, and his brain was a bit on the one track side when it wasn't jumpstarted by coffee and/or adrenaline.  Besides, he was trying to work out the best way to lick a line along Grayson's  neck down to a nipple and even when he was bright eyed and clear gilled, that was a task worth focusing on.

  
  


******

 

Tim had never seen one of the villagers trip. Ever.

 

But he wanted too, in the same way he wanted to notice something's significance before Batman did, the same way he wanted to figure out wall walking, the same way he wanted criminals to go 'oh no not Robin, Batman's much less scary!'...

 

Okay so the last one wasn't going to happen, ever. But the others were maybe's.

 

And maybe there were way's to speed things up.

 

"So I think I should suck your cock," Tim said while he was dangling from his fingertips, watching Kiba saunter along a wire strung at an eighty degree angle.

 

Kiba looked at him, blankly, like he hadn't understood but when his next step missed the wire and he fell fifty feet between buildings, Tim figured that he'd been clear enough.

 

And it hadn't sounded like he'd spent all night practicing that line either! Yay!

 

Too bad he hadn't had a camera ready but if he'd had one of those Kiba would have wondered WHY and been ready for it.

 

There was a puff of smoke and Kiba plopped onto the nearest fire escape platform, fumbling with his belt.

 

Tim scowled. He didn't loose the grip in his left hand, but pulled a coin out of his pocket and threw it at the bastards head. "I didn't mean right now!"

 

"Why not!?" Kiba said, eyes wide.

 

"Cause I'm training right now, then I have patrol, then I have to sleep!"

 

"Blowjobs are totally training."

 

"No they arn't."

 

"They are. They totally are. Gag control in case you have to swallow a key."

 

"Why don't I just get a few keys for that?"

 

"Too hard to explain at an airport."

 

"You don't have a key shaped.. thing."

 

Kiba started to reply, then frowned. "Thing? We're back to thing? You just managed cock!"

 

Tim scowled and climbed back to the proper side of the ledge, glowering. "I don't have your oral skills."

 

"Which is why a blowjob would totally be training," Kiba said, fiddling with his own top button and looking downright soulful. "Oral skills are important. Oration is important. I feel they are related."

 

Tim scowled.

 

"Your older Penis seem's to think they are."

 

Tim looked confused a second, then started to rummage in his bag for something to lob at Kiba. An apple maybe followed by six batarangs... One MIGHT hit... "Don't call him that!"

 

"I just think that having to call him Dick's given you a complex. Do you have any friends named Cock or Member or Throbbing Rod? Any Rod's?"

 

Seven batarangs was the max he could throw at once with any sort of accuaracy. Yeah, he could throw them in really fast sucesssion, but not fast enough for Kiba to have annnnyyy problem grabbing them. "Some days I really wish I'd just kicked you in the balls on the helicopter."

 

"Well, at least you can manage balls," Kiba teased.

 

Damn, he dodged them.

 

*******

  
  


"You're free June ninth," Kisame said.

 

Nightwing blinked. Kisame's voice was coming out of the radio in his ear. Normally the only people that contacted him on that were....

 

Okay it was a long list that included all of the Bat's and just about everyone he'd ever worked with but it hadn't included Kisame.

 

Not that he minded, he'd given big blue the frequency thinking it'd make meeting up with him easier but-

 

"I mean it. You're free, Bird-boy."

 

"I am?" Nightwing looked around, up at the one or two visable stars. Good ole Bludhaven pollution, he thought. "Why?"

 

"It's Itachi's birthday and he's invited you," Kisame said in a tone of voice that Nightwing had heard before, just not from him.

 

"You sound. Like that's not good?"

 

"I'm stressed, it'll pass. See you tommorrow sugar buns."

 

Nightwing wasn't sure why he had to be told about these things three months in advance. Or at all, really. He didn't know Kisame's birthday, and he'd known the man long enough that he had to have missed it at this point, right?

 

What'd you get one of the villagers for a present anyway?

He tried to think about that for the rest of the night when there weren't more pressing concerns like not dying.

 

He thought about it during the day when there wasn't more pressing thought like not dying in traffic.

 

He really thought about it at the club Kisame's band was preforming at the following night, and would have given up and asked about it later if the suicide bombers hadn't rather distracted everyone.

  
  



	15. Chapter 15

 

"What the hell was that?" Lois was shouting as she dragged herself back to her feet, leaning on the desk.

 

She wasn't shouting merely because it was her nature, she was shouting because the ringing in her ears made it hard for her to think, let alone hear.

 

"I don't know!"

 

"Did you get a damn picture of it?" Lois asked, tottering to the window. Which was broken.

 

Most of the windows on that wall of that floor (and the thre above and below it) were now, but this window didn't have glass on the inside, because this one was that only one that hadn't been blown IN.

 

"No!" Jimmy yelled back. "Can you see her? What happened?"

 

"That bird that sits on her desk went haywire, then she went haywire and..." Lois trailed off. Or she thought she'd trailed off.  Hard to trail much at that decibel. "Did she take someone with her?"

 

***********

 

"What the hell happened?" the doctor was asking, but Rei had to read the man's lips at it was cut off as a mask came on.

 

"Rei tackled the man he'd been speaking too and the man blew up."

 

"Can they do that?" Another nurse asked, looking like she was about to back away which was bad she was supposed to be putting an I.V. in stupid girl, stupid girl Leroy'd never liked that one too much said anybody who acted that prim outta shit dust more that Leroy had except if nothing else about that man had been healthy he'd been massively good at being nice and regular.

 

The lights were dimming and brightening. How strange.

 

"If they can I don't think they'd embede themselves with several dozen nails in the process," someoen snapped and Rei could almost hear it like it was from a long ways away.

 

He stopped paying attention to his eyes, turnd his focus inwards a little with a medics talent.

 

... He was going to ned a lot of adrenaline to get through this.

  
  


**************

 

_ Sucking chest wounds were never easy ones _ , Kiba thought, frantically, hands trying to stem a flow of too-red-too-fast. Gut wounds gave you a little more TIME.

 

The wolves were eatting what was left of the attacker in tiny delicate bites, circling.

 

"C'mon, C'mon Akumaru you have to work with me here," Kiba was saying. or thinkin it. Something it, trying hard to get the dog to, okay, there she was looking at him. "C'mon, get up, get up, if,"

 

If they could merge, use that attack technique, the wound could be dispersed.

 

How bad was it?

 

Would a hole half that size be something she could survive?

 

Kiba picked up his phone. It took three tries, his hands were too-bright too-red and too slippery to hold it.

 

"Need a medic at the outskirts ranch," he said. "Now." He threw the phone, and bent, focusing and channeling.

 

Would a hole half that size be something he could survive?

 

He couldn't handle the alternative twice. He had once, and it'd been a persistant sort of miracle named Iruka that had forced food down his throat and a I.V. for liquids into his arm and buried him in a pile of puppies upon pupies upon puppies until one had finally clicked.

 

He had a feeling Iruka'd be too busy for that this time around.

"C'mon, Akamaru, don't die," he mumbled.

 

***********

 

"Why were you even there?" The man was wearing scrubs. He had the look of a powerful man who had somewhat gone to seed, hair thinning and rust colored. Thick coke classes over murky green eyes.

 

Grayson rubbed his neck in a borrowed gesture and tried to guess how long it's taken Bruce to turn into that. Half an hour? Less? He was fast, could probably teach classes on...

 

Okay Bruce could teach a shitload of classes if he felt like it. Did 'I'm Batman' count as a credential?

 

"What did you see?" The mask was all in the voice, now.

 

Grayson shut his eyes, inhaled. "Almost nothing. Nothing about the guy struck me as... I saw him walk in," he'd seen everyone walk in, watching a room was automatic. "He didn't even look like a fighter. Didn't walk like on. There was a older guy who looked like he could handle himself in a fight. I didn't see the threat."

 

His hand tightened, relaxed, and he opened his eyes. "You're here because?"

 

"Because that bomber in the ICU is the only one that survived."

 

Grayson stared a moment. There were several questions that brewed at once, but training agian kicked in, narrowed it down. Extract something from the infromation, call that a few facts.

 

"How many?"

 

"Almost fifty that we know of. Coordinated, suicidal. We can assume that there were more, in less public venues, but the liason of the village was injured and Morino is refusing to give any hard facts yet," Silence a moment. "Why were you at the club?"

 

"I like the band," Grayson half lied. Now was not the time for a coming out party, thaaank you. "Kisame invited me."

 

"And at nine thirty, what happened?"

 

Kisame'd paused between songs, laughing. Taking a deep breath, giving Grayson a wink, and then a blur of motion, guitar being dropping, something slamming into Grayson's side hard, smacking him to the wall, he'd seen stars.

 

Grayson thought about that. "What I remember happening or what I worked out that happened?"

 

"Both."

 

"Lead singer dropped his guitar, and something slammed me into the wall," Dick said.  "A muffled sound." A whump noise. Hed really felt it more than seen it. "Shift in the air pressure then it went back to normal. When my head cleared,"

 

Kisame standing in the center of a forcefully cleared area, most of the other fans and listeners still ont he ground.

 

Kisame with his hand, to the wrist, in a swirling orb of red and white water, the bubbles like champane.

 

"The bomber was in a, he called it a water prison. Maybe five hundred galleons, he had to keep his hand into it to keep it, stable. There was a lot of blood in the water. Bubbles. He'd done, something to contain the blast. I thought the bomber was dead at first but then the water went away and he was still alive. The, force of the blast. Well you saw him."

 

"He's barely alive."

 

"He's lucky he's that," Kisame said, melting out of the shadows.

 

Grayson watched Bruces eyes narrow behind silicon and stage paint. Felt the first tendril of. Something. Amusement? Normality?

 

He'd felt Kisame in the room. He was getting good at that, sensing people he knew well. And Batman hadn't. Any other day he might feel privately smug about that. 

 

Kisame was still wearing what he'd been wearing on stage. shit kicker boots and black jeans. Bright blue belt with a black Raven on the buckle, black tank. Hell the guitar was still on his back.

 

"Itachi turned his into... Well. Itachi..." Kisame shrugged. "Itachi went off instinct and just kept the explosion from going out. Or up. Or down. Just....  _ In _ . There's a three foot circle in the park now that used to be, ah, an art critic. Self defense, no one else was hurt."

 

Grayson realize that Kisame was looking at him when he said that.

 

First instinct of Itachi's had been too let the bomber self detonate, but in a small way.

 

First instinct of Kisame's had been too...

 

Had been the same thing. Except the bomber had lived. Just barely. Jury was out on brain damage but...

 

"You left that man a pulp,"  Bruce was saying.

 

"Rei's down," Kisame's attention redirected. "They're going to send a medic, we'll get him up again if it's possible."

 

"You won't be the one's questiong him."

 

"Don't. say. It. Like. That." Kisame's voice was suddenly steel. "I'm not a member of their village, or their plan, and I called for a medic as a courtesy."

 

"Go make sure Itachi dosen't used what's left of the bomber as an art installation," Grayson said, rolling his head back to look at Kisame. Relaxing. "I'm fine, check on him." He didn't think Kisame'd actually leave for long, not without speaking to him again, alone.

 

Kisame gave a nod. "Alright, Grayson."

 

He left out the door, at least, Grayson considered.

 

And if Bruce was wondering what the hell had been up with telling Kisame he was fine, the man didn't ask. Grayson watched him leave next, and lay back onto the bed. Mild concussion at best from hitting the wall, gash on one leg from landing on a beer bottle. Barely worth talking about if there hadn't been so many people around he wouldn't have come in, but he was here now.

 

Grayson sighed and called Tim.

 

No answer...

 

He hesitated, and called Kisame.

 

"You better still be in bed."

 

"Hello to you too, Blue. One question. Between you and Kiba, which one of you's got a better chance of not letting anyone else get hurt?"

 

There was silence.

 

"Kisame?"

 

"I'm on my way to pick up Itachi. I'll make some calls, come back there and then go check on Tim.."

 

"Thank you," Dick told the click and the dial tone. Finger's drummed once on the bed rail.

 

Okay, that was enough of that. He buzzed for the nurse and climbed out of bed, locating his proper clothes. What the fuck was going on out there?

 

****************

 

"Ow."

 

"Don't be a pansy ass," Ibiki grunted, splashing something stinging over the fresh stitches.

 

"The word 'ow' isn't pansy ass. Crying is pansy ass. Don't be a dick," Iruka retorted, giving his fingers  test wriggle. "What do we know?"

 

"Hoshigaki's isn't dead but the man isn't in any sort of state to to talk."

 

"That's amazing self restraint for a man who once broke a dam down just to flood a town out," Iruka said, thoughtfully.

 

"Yes well, his lovers family doesn't beleive in killing or death."

 

"Those are odd things not to believe in, considering how easy they are to go and see," Iruka muttered. HIs head felt like it was filled with sludge and his other arm throbbed dully. "How long was I out?"

 

"Half a day, or so," Ibiki said, glancing at the window. 

 

"Did we loose anyone?" Iruka asked, eyes suddenly wide.

 

"We're not sure yet. We don't think so. A lot of injuries. The league's pleased with the lack of civilian injuries."

 

"Fuck them," Iruka said. "I don't care about  _ them _ right now. Who hasn't called in yet?"

 

"Kiba, Rei, Nami, Liir, Mukiko, and one of the Doe's."

 

"I sincerely doubt Gaara," Iruka started.

 

"No one even tried on him."

 

"Not an inside job then," Iruka said.

 

"We don't know how they got close but anyone who thinks that low level explosions like they were using would be effective? Isn't an inside man. Sit, rest, you're twelve hour's behind the rest of us."

 

"I'm ahead of the fucker's that haven't called in yet," Iruka said, but he let Ibiki push him back down.

 

"It's always funny when you get hurt. You cuss like a sailor when you need pain pills."

 

"Who do we have for those six?"

 

"Not a lot. Just because they could call in doesn't mean the other ones weren't hurt. Hoshigaki was growling for a medic for his little bird but got talked out of it. We can't send anyone to take the surviving bomber out because that damn bat's fluttering around."

 

"You're just annoyed that the bat's self taught in the art of lurking around," Iruka said, but mostly to the ceiling. "Who's behind it? Do we know yet?"

 

"We're working on it. Once the man is stable enough... I'll be working on it."

 

"Discreetly though, they don't like torture here," Iruka said. "Even if the bat likes to dangle people off buildings and hit them a lot."

 

"Why is it that as soon as you calm down, get rational, and duct tape them to a chair they suddenly disapprove? It's not like I'm bullying a confessions out, we know he was involved because he blew up," Ibiki sighed, and Iruka could smell that an orange had been produced, was being peeled.

 

"Maybe it's that heat of the moment thing. Moment of passion," Iruka said, shutting his eyes. "Hurt's the same either way but if they guy's rational when he kicks you in the... ball... then your pride is saddened?"

 

"Normally I'd hit you in the arm for that, bastard," Ibiki said after a moment.

 

"Yeah well," Iruka smiled. Before the world had ended they hadn't even known each other.

 

Well, Iruka'd known  _ of _ Ibiki. Ibiki was a superior, head of several departments, had a reputation. Of course Iruka had known OF him. And Ibiki had known  _ of _ him, to a highly limited extent. Along the lines of 'Umino... He.. Teaches right? Academy? What level? Yeah, that guy.'

 

Now if one of them got hurt, the other was the first to be notified. It was... Well Ibiki called it sorta gay but really it was just. Nice. Okay, they were only friends because the only thing they had in common was surviving the end of the world and being from the same village but, that was enough. Kiba was young enough to recover quickly with a new puppy and some tail.

 

They were... It was good that they were there, to become friends. The fact that they actually seemed to get along was an unexpected bonus.

 

Funny how if you'd asked Iruka, right after the fall, who he could have picked to survive with him...

 

But now anyone but Ibiki seemed insane. Any of the Kage's was too, polarizing for non-Konoha combatants, and no one else had Ibiki's ability to manipulate a committee.

 

"Yeah, well, I'm injured. I'll make fun of your testicle if I wanna."

 

"Enjoy it while it lasts, sick boy you're gonna have to be upright in three hours and I can wait. I'm a patient man. and you have to sleep sooner or later."

 

Iruka smiled and drifted off, amused.

 

*********

 

"Leslie! How good are you with dogs!?"

 

Leslie Thomkins reflected, not for the first time, that a woman of her age could have retired years ago. 

 

Comfortably, even.

 

But that was a joke. Something she told herself so she felt less inclined to go back to sleep. If it got too bad, she could always leave.

 

Except it'd been bad, and she was still here.

 

Besides, she recognized the voice and at least Robin occasionally explained things to her. "Get it on a table and I'll see what I can do,"

 

"It's too big for that! Get down here!"

 

Panic in his voice... Over a dog?

 

See, this was why she slept in her scrubs anymore. It was silly to wear a nightie. She just owned. A LOT of scrubs.

 

Slip on Keds, a nurses friend, go downstairs.

 

Stare.

 

"Genetic experiment?" She asked.

 

Two heads, tongues lolling, from one massive body. The fur was dense brown and grey, streaked with blood, lots of it.

 

"Villager!" Robin was responding, ransacking a cupboard.

 

"Get out of there!" She threw a magazine at him and pulled on some gloves. "What happened to him?"

"Something explosive, not sure, wasn't there," Robin said.

 

She could see him taking deep breaths, trying to calm down, but the tension was all still there.

 

"And, this villager is a dog?"

 

"No, it's... He's got a dog, he did some sort of... he merged with it. They're... Look I can't explain it very well, not all the details but this, thing is a guy named Kiba and his dog. I think.... I don't know. I really don't. I can't find his phone and I can't reach anyone that can get me a connection to the village yet."

 

Not that he'd had time. He'd have to shove that thing Kiba turned into back of Kiba's truck and driven like hell to get to here.

 

Leslie shoved him out of the room. "Go find me a damn vet!"


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS STORY:
> 
> It's almost over. Sorta.
> 
> Think of it this way.
> 
> Two worlds, parallel, hurting through time and space next to each other but separate.
> 
> Maybe more perpendicular than parallel. Kept separate by harmonics, string theory, and copyright law. 
> 
> I mean, of course, the Marvel Universe.
> 
> Oh yes, it too was hit by the flying shards of the universe destroyed by the youngest of the the Uchiha clan.
> 
> Out of general respect for you, you don't have to read that half. I put this up in the Naruto section, I'm aware that if I put up marvel characters I'll have to write them small bio's, and point those of you that know know gently towards wiki.
> 
> But if you should happen to go to my author's profile...
> 
> You might notice a diffrent story there.
> 
> How to make a Friend Against Their Will.
> 
> And if you want to read it, well. Remember, Remy LeBeau's the one that throws cards, Wolverine's the one played by Hugh Jackman, and Spiderman's the one that won't. Shut. Up.
> 
> It also has quite possible the first Kakashi I''ve ever written who has a degree in being an asshole. 
> 
> I'm going to start posting it tonight. Right now, Really. I'll write it, and this until they hit convergence. Then.
> 
> Well, then I'll write a follow up, solve the two mystery's (one per story!).
> 
> Then.
> 
> Well, and then?
> 
> Then I'll write more, mostly likely. Some in this world, some in others. If it has Crackficin the title?
> 
> Well, Wiki is spelled W-I-K-I...
> 
>  
> 
> Now, don't let me detain you.

*******************

 

Nightwing was on the roof, rotating his shoulder slowly and contemplating where he would go once off the roof. The rounds, maybe. Bombing meant a bit of chaos meant crimes of opportunity. Yeah, the rounds. He'd call Oracle, tell her to put her on the short list of people-to-tell if news came up about the how and the why.

There was a click in his ear. He listened to the pattern and brought his hand up. "Yeah?"

"Hey, it's me," Robin said. "What the hell happened?"

"Kiba okay?"

There was silence. The bad sort of silence.

Nightwing took a breath, and filled him in, finsihin with, "Is he ailve?"

"Barely. He fused with his dog."

Nightwing opened his mouth, closed it, thought about it and went with "A villager thing, right?"

"Yeah, specifically a Kiba thing. They all do different things but he got HURT in that. Shape and..."

Nightwing thought of being slammed into the wall, water froth white and blood red and swirling around a blue wrist. "They all have different things," he agreed. "You need help over there?"

"No. Sound's like everyone's busy and I just dragged one of Gotham Zoo's vet's out of his bed," Robin said. "He stopped yelling at me when he saw the wolves and the... I don't know. The Kibamaru."

"Alright. I'll tell Oracle to keep you in the loop, she'll call you."

The line went dead.

Nightwing rolled his shoulders. "Already have Itachi?"

"He's at home, it's secure there," Kisame said, softly from somewhere behind Nightwing's right shoulder. "Tim called the villagers, but you were talking to him when I got here so... Are you alright?"

"I already told you, I'm fine," he started, but hands on his waist pulled him back, lips connected with the skin behind his ear. "Don't."

"I knew that I'd kept the blast off you, but I wasn't sure how hard I'd smacked you out of the way," Kisame said, hands patting up an down lightly, leaving a strange tingle. "Let me worry for a moment."

"That almost hurts."

"I know. I'm sorry," Kisame exhaled, pulled him backwards and flush. The tingle went up, got into his head a moment, then it faded. "Somedays you make it hard for me not to end up a player."

"You're not going to hunt them down?"

"I told you I'd stay out of the hero business, I meant it," Kisame said.

"You never did say why."

"Because you do it to protect those that need it, and I'd only be good at hunting down the villains," Kisame said.

"I always thought it'd be because you didn't trust yourself not to kill them. Once you caught up to them," Nightwing said, not moving to touch the wide, warm hands on his hips.

The hands went still. "There's that," Kisame agreed, finally.

"You did say you weren't a nice person."

"When on earth did I tell you that?"

"You were drunk. Only time I'd ever seen you drink that much. You told me you weren't a very nice person, really, and you fell asleep. I don't think you knew I was awake."

"Ah."

"Was month's ago."

"Ah."

"So I asked around."

"Ah.."

"And no one would say much."

"Mmm."

"So I asked Itachi."

The silence behind him winced.

"So I think I understand why you stay out of it all," Nightwing continued, in as sociable a tone he could manage. He had to reach back and up, quickly, to grab Kisame's hair when the man tried to pull away. He only managed it by stomping his toes at the same time with as little warning as he could manage.

Kisame went still.

Nightwing pivoted, wincing a little because keeping that grip on the man's head made his now-sore shoulder twinge. "I don't really understand everything. Maybe someday you'll explain it better." He grinned. Kisame looked confused a little so he kissed the moron on the cheek-gills. "I'm fine. Go. I'll see you in the morning." He let go of the man's hair.

Kisame nodded, eyes half shut. "Okay, Grayson," he said.

"Nightwing," Nightwing corrected, though it was too bad. He loved the way Kisame said his name. Almost like 'Gray's son' with a tiny bit of formal, careful infliction. "Now give me a kiss and scram." 

"Sorry," Kisame said, half a mumble against his lips. "I'll go check on Kiba now?"

Passionate, Itachi'd said. Just give him a direction and let him go. Thorough, too.

"Please do."

Kisame nodded, and left, vanishing over the edge of the rooftop. 

Itachi'd used other words though. Like terrorist, ruthless, and brutally efficient.

Loyal.

Nightwing shook his head, and turned. Damage control because crazy, stupid people had set off bombs in his city. In a lot of cities. Somewhere out there, there was a villain who'd was a prisoner waiting for trial. They just didn't know it yet.

 

**********  
What do we know? 

It was a repeated question in may people's heads that night, and the next day.

What do I know?

They asked themselves that one, racking their minds.

Did I see him when he walked in?

What had he been wearing?

What had been in her hands?

Her hands had been empty. What detonated?

Was it more people like the villagers?

What did they know about the bombers? What linked them?

What do you know?

So little was sure. but bit by bit by bit fact's lined up.

No one could read the words yet, or see a pattern.

They weren't someone who knew much about the villagers, or they would have used bigger bombs.

No one was dead except the bombers. So far.

There were a lot of injured. So many.

Nami'd been found impaled on rebar screaming in their language, asking for Rei. Her crushed tube of lipstick made a paramedic very, very ill.

Rei was in a coma, but by noon the next day a tall, thin man with pale blue hair and writing on his face was with him, washing down his body and doing something complex with copper dust in saline.

Kiba was.... They weren't sure if he'd pull through yet. The jutsu he'd used wasn't supposed to last that long, no one knew what it'd do to the guy.

No one else from his clan had emerged, after all.

Even Morino didn't know much about them But that was the clan's for you after all. 

Superman took up a post near the sole survivor.

what do you know?

That meant that they couldn't take him... Easily.... Not at all, really, not without violating the sort of wordless truce they had.

Heard they were gonna let the bat question the guy.

Oh, sweet gods, Ibiki-lite.

What do you know?

They knew...

They knew so little.

There was nothing that the villagers hated more, knowing little. Knowing little was a quick way to get dead. Lack of intel, missions with only vague parameters, there was a reason that only the best took those sort of missions. 

Too little info. 

What do you do when there's too little info?

You find more, obviously. That was what you did.

The villagers were searching. Hunting, really.

People found themselves looking into that friendly stranger's eyes, then waking as if from a dream hours later. That was the easy way for several people who were friends with the detonated people.

The hard way left them... Well.

They didn't kill anyone. They didn't hurt anyone.

Badly.

They found out that the only thing...

But it didn't make sense.

************

Robin wasn't answering. Well, not completely. He was answering enough to check in.

That wasn't the same as really answering. Batman was a bit. Busy.

There had been fifty or so escapee's. None of the heavy hitters. Even badly hurt, the village guard there had kept the door shut on the most dangerous ones even in the confusion and turmoil.

If it hadn't been their fault for attracting the attack in the first place he might almost be impressed. 

As it was he was just going to use this incident as proof that they had to get the hell out of his city right the fuck now. Once they were done bleeding.

The quick trip to bludhaven had taken time, but it'd been necessary. If the survivor'd been able to talk it'd have even been worth it.

(Because he certainly hadn't been there to check on Grayson, Grayson could handle himself. Though he might have to have a talk with him about being too friendly wih that villager. Friendship was too close to acceptance.)

"And you're certain?" he repeated.

On the other end of the line, Umino sighed. "We'd be more certain if we can get a sample of what's left of the survivor," he added, meaningfully.

"Which one of your clans would have had that sort of ability?"

There was silence. "None of them, that we know of. Look, seals, maybe. if the tattoo's have been patterns.. But.. Just the ink? Nothing as delicate as mind control. Maybe... Mind suggestion... Posion. I've sent you list of what we CAN do with tattoo's but making that many people decide to, go to shows or walk up to strangers then explode? No, this isn't from our world."

Batman moved to end the conection, and paused. "Whose then?"

"You're the detective."

And then the line went dead.

On him.

He'd been hung up on!

On the other side of Gothem, as he was putting on his jacket, Stan paused.

His jaw twinged.

He glanced at the calender.

Rent wasn't due just yet. Fat Jimmy and skinny whatever and all the other chop shops he could deliver too'd still be there tommorrow night. Well. One of them should be.

He put his jacket back up and sat back down on the couch, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Yeah, he'd considered moving once or twice but his jaw really only warned him about one man's mood.

It ached again, and he sighed, got back up and went ot his phone. "Hey, yeah, it's Stan. Marcy, listen, tonight's a good night to stay in. Yeah, I got a feeling. Okay. Good. Sure, we can order pizza and watch the news."

********

Let's discuss the details again.

And by discussing these, you realize that Sterling is stepping back into the picture. 

When you take the image of a virus, and blow it up, over and over and over again, you get an image that, when colored, is alien and wonderful. Even the most deadly viruses have this quality. Like abstract posters.

Sterling has these on her her office walls. Well, what little isn't covered by degree's and doctrate and masters.

But she wasn't looking at them. She was looking at a scrape of skin that Superman had delivered because even Batman didn't have an electron microscope in his cave. 

(there was a bet in the JLA coffee room about how long that'd last)

And she was currently gushing over it.

"Carbon! Tiny little! Carbon!" She was squealing so merrily and talking so fast that even her long term co-workers had no idea. The brighter ones just peered at the screen and tried to guess before she wound down enough to explain it.

The slower ones just went and got coffee.

It's possible that those two groups of colleagues are labeled backwards.

The end result was the same. A group of scientists waiting around while Sterling burbled out words like 'nano' and 'carbon tubes' and 'radio control' and 'amazing' and eventually calmed down with words like 'patent' and 'proprietary' and something that sounded like the legal jargon version of 'finders keepers'

 

The Flash and a Villager got there at very close to the same time.

Both looked torn between slapping her, and slapping each other, before settling on trying to calm her down. 

What they finally got out of her was this. Someone had built a bunch of little cell sized machines out of overly cleverly placed carbon atoms that could do a variety of things. They could move around. They could signal each other. They could build more little machines. And they could build various other compounds.

And they could do it fast.

The Villager, whose name was currently Lilac on the basis that she liked lilac and tended to leave flower like burns on her opponents, finally had enough. "How do we stop it from blowing up then?"

"Oh, that's not THEM blowing up, oh, that's them making explosives out of people." 

Lilac leaned over to the Flash. "Were you aware that carbon and fat could be arranged to blow up?"

"There's that stuff in there too, right? Phosphorus?"

"Yeah but, in a person? Enough to take out a wall?"

"I'm just here cause I beat the rush, okay? I haven't actually studied how much explosive power the average human can be made into."

"Yeah, ditto," Lilac agreed.

"Oh course they could also wipe out the planet but that's," Sterling was saying.

Flash winced. "Okay, time to tune back in... Sorry, what was that last part?"

"Oh, you know. The gray goo end of the world," she flapped her hand, dismissively. "Make a nanite to make more nantites, and they build out of anything that's there, so one builds another, that's two, build two more, that's four, becomes eight, becomes sixteen, becomes thirty six, you hit about eight million by the first month, and that's only if they double once every twenty four hours. Granted, with nanit'e that's maybe cupful, but one cup becomes two, then four... You see? And since they use carbon, anything that's carbon'd be taken apart."

"... I don't' suppose you can just kill them with fire..." Lilac said, morosely. Flash gave her a look. "THe tricky bastards never die from fire like you'd think they outta," she explained.

"Why would you wan tot destroy them? They're... They're perfect! you could do anything with them!" She said, looking frankly surprised by the very IDEA of destroying them.

Big picture again. She saw it not.

"Ah, control them then?" Flash tried, warily. 

"Oh, I'm sure. Someone kept trying to make them build little transmitters, they're so cute!"

"You stopped them, right?"

"Oh, of course! Could just NOT catch the frequency but we're jamming all of them in it's room. Tried though, but when they didn't send a signal back someone shut it down," she seemed annoyed by that, at least. "If you catch him, I have a list of questions for you to ask him. It shouldn't be possible to built that small but..." She looked dreamy and started going on about... Something.

Lilac's phone went off, and she excused herself. Flash followed as quickly as was polite.

"Cell phone? Really? Here? Eighty feet down in the middle of nowhere?"

Lilac shrugged, opened her mouth and imitated the ring again, nearly perfectly. "Look, I'm just here for the short version and cause I got enough healing shit tattoo'd on me to hold me together if the teleport failed."

"The what?"

She smiled, wide. The left top canine had a diamond in it, at least, Flash assumed it was diamond. It was smooth on the outside, any faceting was inside, but there had to be some because it sparkled anyway. "We're working on extending the range of our personal kawarimi's. In theory i can go from here to china but it takes a lot of smoke to distract the laws of physics."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It does. It makes common sense, laymen's logic. That's what our world works on. Drives Sterling insane, that's why she's so happy with that ink in there. It's testable."

"That really doesn't make sense."

Lilac shrugged. There was a pop, and a pop of smoke, and she was comfortably perched on the top of a chair. "You're fast, right, did you see that?"

Flash glowered.

Lilac beamed. "You only think you weren't paying attention. Teleportation through constant training is impossible so you don't see it. Your brain just says 'no' on some level. "

"I think you're just making things up now."

"Well. Yes. Not me, personally. We're working on a number of sound but technically grossly inaccurate explanations for what we do so people can nod and act like they understand. It seemed better than just waving our hands and saying 'hey! Ho! It's maaaaaaaagic', you know? If you give people enough so that they think they know what happened, they'll stop looking for the wires."

"Do you learn all those little, terms and phrases when you absorb the language or are you all just watching MASSIVE amounts of tv?"

Lilac nodded.

**********

 

Victor Von Doom is a meglo-manical asshole.

Let's be clear.

Oh, we could demonstrate his pig headedness, his misplaced feeling's of entitlement, his tendency to blame everything from his indigestion to the weather on people who are not him, never mind his bad habit of drinking all the pickle juice in one go while futzing with his storm-ray(tm). 

But it's easier just to tell you.

And, like most asshole's, he think's he's right. Just meglomanical might be less annoying. People who want to take over the world because that's what you do when you're evil are at least easy to understand, the one's that want to be feared and respected because they got poked in school a lot. 

There's something honest about men who want power because it's power, money because they are greedy, and respect because of fear. Well, at least honest about their motivations.

Victor Von Doom, wanted to make the world a better place. In his image. After getting revenge out of the way.

His most useful flaw is over confidence.

****************

The villagers self imposed quarantine, with the following exceptions.

Itachi, who simply had the words 'cation, may explode' printed on flyers and nailed them up around his work area and exhibits.

Nami, who just warned the rest of the staff of the Daily Planet that the largest blast radius had been fifteen feet, not counting debris and possible shrapnel, and if they had a problem with her being there, fuck them. Then she'd painted a twenty foot radius around her desk.

 

That didn't mean that they vanished but all of the ones there were 'out' as it were didn't go out in the conventional way in case a stranger walked by and exploded.

Kiba and Kisame didn't like this much. It made getting any even harder than normal. 

They were currently discussing it over coffee.

"Do they have the ink maker yet?" Kisame asked, eying Itachi. Itachi was trying to talk Kiba's wolves into eating bacon from his hands. They were drooling over it, but eying Itachi like he was made of rolled up newspaper. Wild wolves would have just run away but Kiba's were smart enough to be stupid enough to think about it. 

"They're trying to extract a scent but since the thing don't really put off any particles... Plus the ones they have are like, two hundredth generation. None of the makers blood sweat tears or smell."

"I don't think they're any closer," Kisame said, a slight inflection in his voice changing the 'they/them' of the village to the 'they/them' of the local heroes. They'd started to called them the local color but they'd gotten damn shirty about it apparently. 

Kiba caught it, nodded. "Tim say's he'll tell me the day after they catch em."

"Grayson just said a day after."

"Mmm, well, Grayson's never seen you fight, has he?"

"He saw me stop that explosion. He's seen Itachi spit fire balls."

"That's still a no, isn't it?"

"Itachi told him about me," Kisame shrugged. "I haven't offered a demo."

"You should come do the tracking practice with us. Got a few different area's. Find a few dozen acres of wasteland or ice or jungle and chase down a buncha wannabe's, hit em with paint," Kiba said, changing topics.

Kisame's shoulder's twitched. "Tracking avoidance practice, you mean? No, I wanna be able to hunt you little bastards down if I need too." 

"Don't you trust us?"

"I trust Grayson not to knowingly lie to me. I Trust Itachi to be Itachi. Outside of that, what else can you trust?"

Kiba nodded. "I trust a few of the villagers, I guess."

"Do you trust Tim?"

"Not to lie to me or not to kill me?"

"Killing doesn't count, they're against that."

"Eh, well, he's the bat's. I don't expect loyalty."

Kisame nodded. Trust and loyalty were different. 

He had another sip of coffee, dark, no cream no sugar, black. It was good, after all.

"We're really going to have to kill him, when we find the bastard, arn't we?"

"Dosen't have to be us," Kisame said, blankly. Face calm. A thousand yard sort of look that clearly read 'the less we know, the better!'.

But the perpetrator was going to die. There was no two ways about it, someone from the village would remove the man. After asking him a few serious questions. Simple ones. But serious.

Kisame stood up, finally, took Kiba's cup.

Kiba nodded, stood slowly. Under his shirt was still pink and raw and angery. Akumaru, curled in the corner, had the matching half, the furless awful swatch that went from her ribcage up her flank.

Mortal scars. Ones that took you to the edge, ones that you had to bear with pride because there was no hiding them. Kisame already had the swirls, patterns of the burn-heal, faded light blue, oer even older ones, but he thought that these might be Kiba's first visable ones.

"I have some creams, that work well for that," Kisame offered.

Kiba shook his head. "I got those. I'm gonna go see Tim, I think. it's been few weeks, now, and we were doing so well, you know?"

Kisame nodded. "I think I'll have to do the same. He's been working his ass off," He rubbed his neck. "Shit like that." He did not like the distance, at all. He'd gotten used to Grayson's smell lingering on everything the way some perfumes were supposed too.

He saw Kiba out (talking Itachi into putting the bacon away in the process). Straightened the place, and taking the rooftops, quietly, made his way to Graysons apartment.

********

Victor Von Doom has been dead for three weeks now.

 

***************

"That's what we got," Iruka repeated, rubbing his temples. He felt outclassed here, detective work, interrogation, none of these things were his strong points. His strong points were catching cheaters, taking over out of control illusions or attacks, his strong points were stopping spitballs without looking and threatening to call mom in a world where 'mom' was often able to punch through walls. "All this, time and looking and we don't have a damn thing?"

Ibiki nodded and pour the drink. Pushed it over. Poured two more. 

Diane took hers with a gracious sort of nod. Iruka didn't know what Ibiki'd said or done to the woman but she'd been dropping by in the last month. 

Iruka enjoyed her company well enough, and Ibiki was at least partially smitten with her so it was hard to protest. It did mean that their shop talk over drinks was just that.

"It's the same here," she was saying. Leaning back, staring out the window at the village. "We're not back burner-ing it, but there's simply nothing floating to the top no matter how hard we stir." 

"It's probably a combination of the two," Ibiki said. "Our ways and science. Our ways to program, probably catch the people in the first place, and science to make them detonate."

Iruka nodded, they'd had this talk. "Who's that mad at us though? From our side, that-"

"I know you two plot out what to discuss before I get here, can I have the short version?"

"The short version?" Iruka laughed. "This is the short version. This is the part where we keep drinking and tossing out names. Like, um, Orochimaru."

"He was dead before the world went sideways through the sewage drain," Ibiki said. "And if he had survived, he'd be in a new body by now."

"See?" Iruka smiled at her, shrugged. "Okay, so the first bit's for your benefit, but you can feel free to chime in with anyone you know of that could pull this off." 

"We have a list of people who could," she said. "But villains here tend to have a... Style. Signatures."

"That's convenient," Iruka mused. 

"Our people have styles as well," Ibiki said. "It's not like your universe has some sort of, corner on the stylistic market." 

"How long before I got here did you start drinking?" Diane asked after there had been a thoughtful moments contemplation of that statement. 

Iruka shrugged and Ibiki snorted. "I'm sorry. It's just that you people in this world seem to think you had all the good idea's first." 

"You said they had," Iruka said.

"When?"

"I don't know. A few months ago. You were online."

"I didn't say they'd had all the good ideas. I just said then internet would have been very useful to me," Ibiki said, almost sullenly.

"So, is it blackmail?" Iruka asked her as sociably as he can. "Is that how he get's you here? He's got the negative's hidden somewhere?"

"Oh, nothing like that," she grinned at Ibiki. "Isn't that right?"

Ibiki straightened his cuffs carefully. Like a preening hawk, really. "We go to strip clubs," he said, finally. "Henge's are involved."

"Ah, so that's where your extra money comes from? I always thought you had a secret love for pole but-" 

Iruka didn't try to dodge the blow. It was futile. If he'd succeeded the next one would just be harder. 

"It's enjoyable," Diane said, pouring herself a second drink and downing it much more quickly that the first, standing up. "To not worry about being a role model."

Ibiki finished his drink, stood and was offered an arm.

Iruka watched them leave, shaking his head.

******

 

It didn't matter how sturdily built the bed was, or if it was bolted to the floor. By the end, it was always banging a wall rhythmically while Grayson screamed.

Another thing that didn't matter was how determined NOT to scream he started out. By the end, he was always nearly hoarse, cursing and begging and demanding. Maybe some of it was knowing that Kisame was stopping the noises. That no matter how much he screamed, no one but them would hear it. 

Or maybe the man was just that good, Grayson thought dimly, sticky, sweaty and limp as a noodle. That he didn't say out loud, Kisame had something of an ego in that department already, thank you. 

A tongue traced one of the tendon's in his neck and Grayson groaned. "Stop that."

"Sensitive?"

"Mmph," Grayson half nodded. The ceiling was all skylights and black paint with thick white swirls. The moon was perfectly framed in one glass rectangle right now, heavy and almost golden in the fog. He lifted an arm lazily, pinching the celestial body between two fingers a moment before dropping the hand back down. Traced scars in their endless spirals. Somedays he swore they moved. Maybe they did. It wasn't hugely important. "June ninth's next week."

"Yeah, it is," Kisame agreed. A shift, and the large man was sliding off Grayson. 

Grayson made a soft noise at that, and let himself be nudged to his side. The moon and the window left his field of vision and his eye refocused on a weapon rack glittering in moonlight. "Itachi still having that party?"

"Yeah, he still is."

"Invited everyone?"

"Yep."

The kiss at the nape of his neck made Grayson's eyelids go heavy a moment. "Not dangerous, that many villagers in one place outside Montana?"

"Course it's dangerous."

Another kiss. "Bait?"

"Yeah. Hoping for another attack."

"Gonna ask me to stay home?"

"Nope."

"Cause you want me there or because you think I'll be annoyed if you ask me to stay away?"

"Yes."

"Hrrm, that was a bit on the diplomatic side, don't you think?" 

"Yes?"

Grayson laughed. Stretched. Let Kisame's arms wind around him as he settled back down. His heart was still pounding, he could almost imagine Kisame's doing the same against his back. Sun would be up soon, he'd probably drift off to sleep, if he made himself. At some point Kisame'd get up. The man didn't sleep very much, Grayson had noted. "Kisame?"

"Hmmm?"

"When's your birthday?"

"Don't know for certain,"

"You don't know? What, different calender in that world?"

"Well, yes, that too. Mostly just. Never celebrated it. Ever new year, I just, mentally add to my age. Like racehorses."

"Charming." A pause. Grayson could feel the man exhaling. The gills on his ribcage pushed warm air out. It'd been weird the first few nights but it was one of those things you go used too. It was amazing, the things you found yourself getting used too. "What about just saying it was the ninth?"

"I'm going to give you a minute or two to think about why taking any attention away from Itachi on his day is a bad idea."

Dick sighed, nodded a little. "Yeah. Okay. July ninth then."

"If it makes you feel better."

"It does."

"Alright."

"What are you getting him?" Dick asked, or started to ask, except Kisame'd lifted his head off the pillow, was looking... He looked too and flushed a bit. "How long has he been there?"

"Not sure," Kisame grumbled, sliding out of bed and wrapping a sheet loosely around his waist. "Sorry, Grayson," he added, before his tone mellowed out. "Tachi, what's wrong?"

Dick couldn't hear everything that was being said from here. Itachi in the moonlight was two hands flickering on a black back round. Kisame was just a line of spine above the white of the sheet.

"... strange feeling... it's the.... why? ....they're not sharp enough yet, they need to cut...." Itachi's voice rose and fell until Kisame lead him out of the room.

There was a dull hum through the floor as the light came on in the studio section. Itachi might have been blind but he kept the lights high to make sure no one else stepped in his paints. 

And, Dick thought, probably to annoy everyone in a mile radius. He knew that the local made men had tried, only once, to suggest that all of Itachi's paints had been the sort that might burn easily.

Dick had come by that day to find Kisame scrubbing doggedly at a scorch mark fifteen feet long. 

A sigh, a groan and he got up. Wobbly maybe but upright meant the itch of energy made him want to go do... Something. A quick patrol, that'd be best.

******

In some respects, the month passed, slowly.

The shinobi made certain that enough people were invited to the party that anyone really, really listening would know about it. 

"You think they'll fall for it."

Iruka didn't look up. He was grooming a bonsai zen garden about five feet by five feet, finger's in the sand, making it ripple like water. "We hope they will. And if they do not, then at least there will be cake." 

Batman didn't snort, because Batman did not do that sort of thing. 

"We're only putting our own lives on the line," Iruka added. "More or less. A few people are bringing dates but the dates are informed of the possible danger." 

 

*******************I

The party had streamers. And cake.

Food that had been delivered a day or so before. Lots of fresh fish in gleaming spirals on the plates, sashimi. Smooth carved bowls heaped with shredded fruits, jack fruit, mango over ice cream.

Itachi was socially butterflying around unnerving people. Accepting their birthday well wishes after reminding them to give him said well wishes.  
V do  
Kiba sipped his drink and listened.

His wolves were running around the perimeter, led by akumaru, it was safe here...

So why was he so displeased that Tim was here?

Because Kiba knew it was a big shiny lure okay?

The bat was here as well, stubborn.

THere was tension in the air but it was also, still, a party. Everyone congratulated Itachi, even the people that had lost teammates to him, and they milled.

Tested the foods for poisons and ate. Kisame sang a few songs, well, led a few songs. They sounded. Old. What little tim could translate sounded like. Soldier songs. A marching beat. 

There was even dancing, at least a little. Iruka let himself be pulled by Itachi into an empty space and carefully copied the mans moves as best he could. Itachi was going, slowly for him. 

Step step twirl clap step twirl step step clap.

Kiba eyed Tim. All Robined up, bright colors. 

So silly. 

... Kiba elbowed him. “Dance with me?”

“Thought you were gonna keep your guard up.”

“I can do both. Iruka’s let his guard down because if itachi attacks he’ll die. See how he is relaxed but scans around the room? He’s watching itachi’s back.”

“I don’t dance.”

“You can though,” Kiba said. “If you can fight you can dance. “

“But I don’t,” Tim said.

“Alright.” Kiba said with a shrug. 

“You’re not going to push?”

“Seems rude,” Kiba said, then smiled. “And you don’t want too.”

Tim gave him an outright glower.

 

***

Iruka bowed out of the dance as Itachi dragged someone else in, and went and got punch because, well it was a party.

Then he went and found the Bat, because he could.

“We should dance,” Iruka told him. “It will confuse people.”

“I don’t want to confuse people,” the bat said.

Iruka rolled his eyes. “If you say so Bruce,” he said, sipping his punch. He held out a cup. “At least have something to drink or eat. It is a party. There must be something here that you can eat.” 

“I’ve eatten,” he said stiffly. 

“You know your Tim managed to relax enough to get laid imagine what might happen if you did the same,” Iruka said to his cup. 

There was more stiffening. 

“Surely you were aware of this?”

“I.. was aware, yes,” Bruce said. “He’ll learn in time.”

“Such a positive outlook,” Iruka said. 

There was a clatter.

Itachi had produced an absolutely ridiculous pair of oversized throwing stars and looked taunt.

Iruka stepped between Itachi and the bat. Ther was a good fifty feet of distance, and Itachi didn’t have murderous intent in any direction yet but still.

Then there was the sharp smell of ozone.

And Iruke turned and grabbed Bruce by an arm as he started to scatter-

Kiba, he could see Kiba doing the same.

The dry taste of the air suddenly losing moisture-

And the walls were crumbling as what looked like a city started to flicker in and out of existence around them.

**Author's Note:**

> I said complete and I mean it. Sort of. you see there's another story, that's taking place at the same time as this one, in the Marvel universe. I'm posting that as we speak / have posted that.


End file.
